GoldenEye 2010
by Jorus C'baoth
Summary: Remake of GoldenEye, inspired by the WiiMake, starring Daniel Craig. Now non-canon to the rest of my Bond fics.
1. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One: A Long Way Down**_

The Arkangelsk chemical weapons facility struck James Bond as being very odd. Though the Russians had absolutely no intention of harming their own citizens with any chemical weapons, they still built the facility into one of Russia's major dams, where the spill of any of these chemicals could infect the water supply to more than half of northern Russia.

_Mind boggling_, Bond thought as he rappelled down the cliff face to the rear entrance of the base. He made sure to look out under him every so often, making sure his drop off point was clear. There was a single soldier who kept coming toward his desired entrance, but he was currently somewhere else. Bond would deal with him when he became a problem.

"Be careful, 007," M had said when she gave him the mission, "Arkangel isn't a typical facility. Unlike your previous operations, you can't just go in and kill everyone. There'll be scientists there. Civilians. The soldiers you can kill at your discretion."

"I'm sure you'd rather I stay on my leash this time?" Bond asked.

"I don't need you mindlessly killing everyone and everything you see. Your past operations haven't exactly been clean. The Bolivian government is still asking us what happened at the Greene Hotel."

"Of course, ma'am." Bond had turned around to walk out the door.

"Wait, James," she said, a softer tone. Bond turned around. "If it had been up to the PM or his cronies, you'd have been out of active service and on our own hit list the minute you left Austria during the Greene mission. This time, they're forcing my hand. You'll have to meet up with 006, Alec Trevelyan, once you make it on-site. He's got ten more years on you, so follow his instructions once you get there."

"A dog walker?" Bond smiled and let out a small laugh. "I'm almost flattered."

Trevelyan should have been waiting for him inside the facility. Bond would have to rappel down the dam and enter the facility through a ventilation duct or some other exterior entrance. Rappel, rappel, rappel. Why couldn't the Russians build a base on ground level?

Bond landed on the ground and unhooked the rope from his belt. The guard was still no where in sight. Bond withdrew his PPK, carefully attached the sound suppressor and checked to see if it was loaded correctly.

It was time to begin his mission. From his insertion point, he knew there were three isolated guard towers between him and the dam. Three more were on the dam itself. Underneath these, and built into the dam proper, was a tunnel that led to a data transmitting center. One of his other objectives was to infiltrate the computer room in the tunnel and intercept data heading from the Arkangelsk base.

"_Bond, what's your status?" _Trevelyan's voice came though Bond's radio.

Bond whispered enough for Trevelyan to hear, "I've arrived at the first guard tower."

"_Good. I'm already inside. Jump from the helipad down to a maintinance hatch about halfway down the dam. I'm waiting, 007. I hope you prove to be what M says you are." _Trevelyan cut communication.

"Right," Bond said, smirking, "I'm sure she's said good things."

Bond switched his radio off and readied the PPK. The guard had not yet come into view. Bond slowly crept out from behind the rock face that separated him fron the guard. The guard was facing away from him, running through the checks for his AK-74. Bond walked up behind him—slowly, quietly—and grabbed him from behind. One snap, and the guard was dead. Bond relinquished the corpse of his weapon and ducked behind a concrete divider between two lanes of the bridge connecting the side he'd rappelled to and the guard tower.

There were two guards outside the guard tower. One was patrolling the rock wall directly opposite Bond. The other was patrolling the area directly outside the door to the guard tower. Bond saw another guard in the tower itself.

_So, boys, which shall it be?_

Bond kept crouched and walked toward the edge of the bridge. The tower was in the line of sight between the two guards, meaning Bond could take either out without the other knowing. From his position, he took a shot on the guard closest to the tower. He crumpled to the ground, dropping his rifle with a very loud clatter. The guard in the tower heard the noise and took a look over the railing. Bond raised his weapon and fired one shot, nailing the guard in the head. He toppled over the railing and landed on the first guard Bond had shot.

The third guard—the second on ground level—had moved out of Bond's sight. Bond cursed himself for having lost sight of the guard. He stood from his position and slowly crept toward the guard tower. He saw a flashlight beam stick out from the side of the tower. Bond hugged the wall and waited for the guard to appear. Once he did, it was a simple matter of shooting the guard in the head.

Bond did a little scouting of the forward area before moving on. An army transport was currently stopped in the tunnel ahead, leading to the second guard tower. Bond decided to get inside the back. Any guards in the tunnel were out of sight, which meant he was probably out of their sight as well. He dashed forward and crouched down behind the truck. He took a quick peek on either side—both tunnel guards were speaking to the driver. Bond took advantage of the situation and hopped in the back.

It was a rather unpleasant ten minute wait for the truck to start up again. Bond only had an hour to complete every objective on the surface before going into the facility itself. If he didn't get inside and meet up with Trevelyan in that time limit, Trevelyan would continue on without him.

The truck lurched to a stop just past the second guard tower. Bond took a very cautious look outside and saw the driver had gotten out and was going through a security check. Unless Bond understood Russian security checks wrong, the driver and his guard friend would be checking all the cargo. Bond needed a distraction.

A group of barrels with flammable warnings on them were located between the guard tower and a small guard station just beyond it. Bond drew his PPK and took careful aim. If he screwed up this shot, he risked revealing his position. He took a deep breath—recalling what he'd told Camille Montes just outside Dominic Greene's desert hotel—and squeezed the trigger. The barrels exploded with unimaginable sound. Nearly two dozen guards left their stations and encircled the explosion. Two or three had fire extinguishers, while others were scouting the area, attempting to find the cause of the explosion. This included the driver and his guard friend, who ran away from the truck and joined their comrades.

Bond took his shot and jumped out of the back of the truck, then ran around to the front. There was another guard station beside a large security gate. Inside the guard station was a button for the gate. Bond hit the button and ran inside quickly, before the gate closed again. By the time he was on the other side, the soldiers had gotten the fire down and most were returning to their previous positions.

The third isolated guard tower was just ahead of him, as well as a small building which had a garage door, for some reason. Bond kept a watchful eye out for any guards, but so far did not see any. He readied his PPK and approached the building past the guard tower. He knelt down and raised the garage door, revealing a half asleep guard, leaning against the wall.

"What the—" was all the man was allowed to say before Bond punched him in the face. An Russian officer—obvious by the color of his uniform—ran into the room and took quick aim with his Makarov. Bond, however, didn't let him fire. One quick silenced 7.62mm round to the forehead—through the man's large officer hat—stopped him from alerting any other guards.

Bond found a small computer terminal in the room the officer had rushed in from. Q Branch had developed a USB device to steal encrypted material from the Russian's computer network. He needed only to place insert the device into a computer on the Arkangelsk base, and then set the data stream to transfer to a radar shielded MI6 satalite.

Bond checked his watch. Thirty-six minutes and counting until he needed to be inside. He walked out the back door and found a gate that led directly to the dam. He placed the PPK back in its holster and brought out the AK-74. He had a feeling the rest of the way inside the facility would be messy.

He was proved right just minutes later, when a guard from the roof of one of the three towers opened fire. Bond dove, rolled, then sprung back up on his feet and ran to the first tower. If he was right, there would be an entrance into the tunnel from there, and that tower was closest to his destination—the data center would be near the terminal being used for its processing. He opened the door and shot two guards who had just come up the stairs. Both tumbled down, and Bond heard a third guard yell—he'd been hit by his deceased comrades.

Bond ran down the stairs, kicked the third guard who had been hit by his friends, and ran toward through the tunnel. In seconds, he had reached the door to the data center, which was opening as he arrived. A very confused Russian soldier was standing there, and almost had his rifle ready before Bond slammed the butt of his own into the man's face. Another soldier stood from a computer terminal and took potshots at Bond with his Makarov. Bond ducked behind a computer mainframe and waited for his chance. Eight rounds later, and the soldier had to reload. Bond reached around with his rifle and let out a blind shot.

One yelp, and Bond knew he'd hit his target.

Bond came out from behind the mainframe and saw the soldier writhing on the ground. One shot, and Bond put the man out of his misery.

Twenty-nine minutes remaining.

Bond walked over to the terminal and set the data intercept frequency to the satalite. Four minutes later, he got what he was waiting for: confirmation from Q Branch that the data intercept was working.

He now had twenty-five minutes to get back topside, just to go right back down, only further. The door opened, showing Bond off to five more Russian soldiers, who opened fire immediately. Bond dove to the side and landed next to the second soldier he killed in the data room. The man had a grenade on his belt, which Bond retrieved, pulled the pin, and threw. It landed just outside the data room, and the explosion almost deafened him, but Bond was pleased with the results. All five soldiers were dead, and Bond had a clear path outside. He took his chance and ran.

An Mi-24 was taking off from the helipad on the edge of the dam when Bond got topside. Four soldiers had come out of it, and were firing away with their AK-74s. Bond returned fire, took out two of them, then ducked behind whatever cover was available. One of the soldiers threw a grenade in Bond's direction. He grabbed it and tossed it back. It landed near at least one of them, that man was blown off the dam entirely. Bond took a peek out and saw only one man left, struggling with a grenade that would not come off of his belt. Nasty way to go, but Bond couldn't be stopped. He raised the AK and took aim at the grenade. One shot, and the Russian soldier was a hole in the ground.

Eighteen minutes. Bond ran for the helipad and pulled out his bungee rope. He found a small hole near the edge of the pad and tied the rope off there. He gave a very cautious look around him, then jumped. It was about twenty meters between the helipad and the entrance Trevelyan suggested. It would take him a little over thirty seconds to reach that distance.

He slowed his descent when he approached five meters. At two meters, he cut away the rope and landed on a small platform which held the ventilation shaft that would take him inside the facility. He pulled back his sleeve and turned on the laser inside his Omega watch—another gift from Q Branch. MI6's new division was as helpful as they were imaginative. It took less than a minute to cut a hole in the vent cover.

As he did so, a thought crossed through Bond's mind: if Trevelyan was already inside, and had suggested this opening, why was it closed? Had he found another entrance and found this one on the way?

The questions—and their respective answers—would have to wait for him to meet Trevelyan.

Bond landed in a small vent, which was very cramped. He could only move forward, and could not turn in the space. Luckily, there were only a few feet to the vent. That few feet, however, was bad enough with the stench. He must have been over a restroom or other similar place. He crawled forward and found a vent cover that looked over a toilet stall. Bond watched as a Russian soldier entered the stall, dropped his pants, pulled out his newspaper and sat down.

Bond took the cover off the vent and slid down very carefully. In a moment, he was hanging vertically out of the vent, yet the Russian soldier on the toilet was staring at his paper, and could not see him.

"Excuse me," Bond said, causing the soldier to lower his paper and see the blonde-haired Brit hanging there in front of him. "Is that the Sports page?" The soldier stared in shock, until Bond punched him in the face.

Bond slid out of the vent and landed in the stall. Because of the stench, he flushed the toilet and exited the stall. Another soldier was standing at a urinal, relieving himself. Bond ignored him and silently slipped out of the rest room.

A guard was standing at the base of the stairs which lead to the main corridor. Bond shouldered the AK and drew his PPK. He was seconds away from firing when another guard passed him. Bond waited, then, as the second guard left his sight, he fired. The guard fell forward, landing face down on the floor. Bond quickly rushed downstairs and pulled him into another room. It appeared to be a storeroom of some type. He searched the guard and found a keycard in his back pocket. Bond took the card and stuffed it into his own pocket, then placed the guard in a corner.

He walked over to a small window in the opposite corner to the guard. It showed the mess hall, where thirty or more soldiers were eating. Bond could almost smell the chicken.

Movement—to Bond's left. He spun around and aimed the PPK. He was greeted by a silencer attached to a Sig Sauer P228. The voice of the man holding the weapon was English, yet spoke Russian. Bond translated his words as, "Lower your weapon and state your intentions!" which was then followed by, "How many more of you are there?"

"I came alone. My intentions are the same as yours," Bond answered, holding his PPK in an _I give up_ position.

The figure stepped out of the shadows and lowered his own weapon. "But of course they are, 007. You're every bit as good as M said you were," Alec Trevelyan complimented him. "She said you'd shoot first and forget the questions."

"Glad to know I can please my elders, 006."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Chapter Two: Botched Missions Ruin Possible Friendships**_

Bond followed Trevelyan through the facility, cautiously watching out for either scientists or soldiers. Trevelyan had managed to contact an MI6 double agent inside the facility, a man who went by the codename 'Dr. Doak'. He had a very necessary piece of equipment with him: a door decoder. Without the decoder, they could not enter the bottling room where they needed to plant explosives.

Trevelyan was very certain of the route they were taking. Through two security doors, which they'd opened from another room, past a locker room/shower setup, then into a small corridor with three doors. The one of the right was closest to them, the one on the left farthest away, and the third door was on the opposite wall as them. The corridor was suspiciously quiet.

"This is too easy," Bond said, walking over to Trevelyan, who was opening the door on the right.

"Right," he said, pulling a grenade from his pocket. "Better safe than sorry." He tossed the grenade into the room, then closed the door.

"Words to live by, but won't that set off the alarm?"

Bond's question was answered in seconds, when Trevelyan opened the door and revealled that four of the five people in the room had been killed by the blast, while the fifth was cowering in a corner. Trevelyan simply walked in and put a bullet in his head. "Sound proof," he said.

"No chance any of them was this Doak person you mentioned?"

"No. His position is the laboratory. He'd never compromise himself. Not at a time like this."

Bond nodded. Trevelyan seemed to know what he was doing. Of course, he was a more seasoned agent than Bond. Where Bond had only two years in the Service, Trevelyan was nearing ten years. Bond was also a good deal younger than Trevelyan. At forty, he still had fifteen years of Service time left. Trevelyan was only one year shy of mandatory retirement age: fifty-five.

Bond checked the other room, finding only one scientist. A bullet to his head was all the poor chap got for all his work. Trevelyan walked in behind him. "Good work, Bond. I see you earn your licence to kill earnestly."

"Being a Double-0 means being a killer."

"I'm sure M would be proud."

"Half-monk, half-hitman. That was her decision."

Trevelyan nodded, then walked out of the room. Bond followed, keeping half a pace behind him. They left the corridor and emerged in a hallway that provided three options: to the right, to the left, and ahead. Ahead was a door. To the right and to the left were two hallways. Trevelyan took away any choice by walking through the door ahead and silencing every soldier in the room.

_Obviously you earned your licence as earnestly as I did, _Bond thought.

Trevelyan walked over to a console to the left, pressed a button, then walked past Bond. "C'mon, this way."

"Yes, sir," Bond said, following him.

The new room had a staircase, which Trevelyan started climbing. Bond kept his half-a-pace behind, then stopped, just as Trevelyan had. Trevelyan held up two fingers, pointing forward. Bond knew this, it meant to go ahead slowly. Without acknowledgement, Bond did just that. He turned the corner and took aim at the back of the head of a soldier. Trevelyan did the same for the man next to him. On a silent count, both men fired their weapons at the soldiers after three seconds.

"Not bad, 007," Trevelyan said, holstering his Sig.

"I try."

The nearest lab room had a name stenciled across the glass: DOCTOR DAVID DOAK. The words were in Russian, but Bond had become proficent at reading Cyrillic. Trevelyan walked in, Bond followed.

"Time to leave, Dr. Doak," Trevelyan said, holding out his hand. "We'll take that door decoder."

"Two members of Her Majesty's Secret Service? This place must be worth a lot."

"Considerably more than it seems, doctor," Bond said, hoping to rush the man into giving them the decoder.

"Of course." He reached into his lab coat pocket, then handed Trevelyan a device about the size of a calculator. "Just punch in five-five-six-one-oh."

Trevelyan nodded, then left the room. Bond followed once more, and kept his weapon at the ready. It was practically useless, however, as the rest of the place was devoid of guards or even scientists. Not for the first time, Bond didn't like the feeling of the mission.

Trevelyan used the decoder on the door to the bottling room. He retrieved the device after opening the door, then they both slid in and shut the door.

"This is too easy," Bond repeated while scoping out the surrounding area. The bottling room was completely devoid of any type of life besides Bond and Trevelyan.

"Half of everything is luck, James," Trevelyan said, resetting the code for the door lock.

"And the other half?" Bond asked, opening a pouch on his vest and retrieving a timed mine. The devices were the size of an MP3 player, and could be set for any amount of time eight minutes and under.

Suddenly, the alarm went off. Bond spun around and saw that Trevelyan had removed the door decoder. Had resetting the code and removing the device been what did it? "Fate," Trevelyan said, answering Bond's earlier question. "Set the timers for six minutes, then make for the door!" he ordered, running down the stairs. Bond just nodded without speaking.

Something more had gone wrong than just taking the decoder off the door, but Bond didn't have time to pursue it. The mission could still be completed if they got the bombs on the gas tanks and made it out to the runway on the other side of the dam, which the back door of the facility was connected to.

Colonel Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov and several of his best men were standing at a window which looked into the room. Ourumov ordered his troops to fire. The glass had been meant to keep chemical leaks contained in the bottling room. With enough gunfire, however, the glass could be broken down, which is what Ourumov's troops did.

Bond peeked out from setting a timed charge. There were literally dozens of Russian troops pouring into the room from the broken window and the door through which he and Trevelyan had entered. Bond pulled an extra charge from his pocket, set it for ten seconds, then threw it at the incoming soldiers. He didn't get Ourumov, but he did get a great deal of his soldiers.

"Alec!" he shouted over the sound of a little gunfire, "we've got far too many friends over tonight!" When he didn't get an answer back, Bond looked around the gas tanks—Trevelyan was nowhere to be found. He looked out around the tanks and saw Ourumov had Trevelyan on his knees, hands behind his head. Ourumov's Makarov was pointing directly at his head.

"Come out," Ourumov said, "toss your weapon to the ground and surrender yourself."

"Just finish it, Bond! Blow this place to shit!" Trevelyan yelled. Ourumov pistol-whipped him, then regained his composure.

"You have ten seconds before I kill your friend and order my men to fire."

"You'd never blow the gas tanks, Colonel," Bond yelled back. He had retreated behind a tank again and reset the timer on one of the bombs for two minutes. When one went off, the others would as well. "And, in two minutes, we'll all be dead anyway!"

Bond heard a gunshot, then looked around the gas tank again. Trevelyan's lifeless body was lying there, smoke coming from Ourumov's barrel.

006 was dead.

Bond made a dash for the door in back. Ourumov's troops fired at him—apparently, Ourumov was crazy enough to kill them all when he knew it was inevitable anyway—but none of their bullets connected to anything but wall and floor. Bond ran up the stairs and made it to the top just as Ourumov's troops made it through the door. Bond looked over the side of the stairs and saw Ourumov's very angered face staring up at him.

It was very cold outside when Bond got to the runway. A plane was already sitting on the runway. Hopefully, the keys were already in the ignition. Bond made a very mad dash to the plane and was greeted by a bullet through the cockpit glass when he made it there. He spun around and saw Ourumov and his troops had made it outside. Bond emptied out the last of his AK-74 on them, then left the weapon. He jumped inside the plane and found that he was actually in luck this time—the keys were in the ignition. He ran though the mental list of take-off procedures and started the plane. He didn't have time to do everything necessary, so he started it up very quickly, then got himself moving.

As the plane lifted off—hopefully with no damaging holes in it—Bond checked his watch. Ten seconds until the charges went off. When he was safely away, he turned and looked out the window. The explosion was immense. A piece of the dam itself had been blown off.

And Bond had left the corpse of Alec Trevelyan there. Hopefully, the base collapsing on top of him would provide a propper burial.

He tapped a few buttons near the radio. Frequency 007—a direct line from him to MI6 HQ in London. "Bond here. Mission accomplished. 006 is out of play, however."

M's voice came over the radio. _"We read you, 007. Good job. Trevelyan's funeral service will be carried out when you return."_

"Understood, Ma'am."

"_007?"_

"Yes?"

"_How?"_

"Colonel Ourumov."

"_Soviet-headed dog! I wasn't even aware he was stationed at Arkangelsk."_

"Well he was. And he must have known we were coming."

"_A traitor?"_

"It must have been Doak. The double agent Trevelyan contacted."

"_We'll try to point fingers later, 007. Just get back here."_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Chapter Three: Along the Countryside**_

_One Year Later_

Bond shifted gears in the DBS and rounded the corner very sharply. Caroline Fleming, sitting to his left, appeared very frightened.

"Something wrong, love?" Bond asked, throwing a smile her way.

"Perhaps the insanely unsafe speeds you're taking this car along," she answered, her teeth chattering every so often. She seemed to be shaking. "You do know this doesn't help your case?"

"Hmph!" Bond laughed. "If M was sure I was out of it, I'm sure she'd have said so herself."

Caroline didn't respond—with words, anyway. Bond had drifted onto the right side of the road, into the oncoming path of a semi. She screamed loudly, to which Bond once again smiled. He turned the wheel and once again returned to the propper side and continued on.

"Would you prefer if I stopped?" Bond asked. For some reason, he rather enjoyed frightening the young woman.

"Stopped? I'd prefer if you let me off and made me walk! You can carry on you own damn unsafe driving!"

Bond smiled again. "Come now, Caroline, we're just having a pleasant drive in the country."

"Pleasant? I've been on a rollar coaster that travelled slower than this!"

Bond was about to say something when he glanced in the rear-view mirror. A pale yellow Ferrari was coming into view, travelling at a similar speed to Bond. "Now who's this?" he asked aloud, though speaking to no one.

Caroline turned around and saw the car. "Is this one of your tricks, 007?"

Bond asked, "Now how could that be? I wasn't even aware of this evaluation. How could I have somehow ingeniously called someone to race with me here?"

"I don't know!"

The Ferrari pulled up alongside them, revealling the driver to be a raven-haired woman, mid-thirties. She was wearing a very large coat, lots of wool on the shoulder area. Her eyes were shielded by sunglasses. She was smiling, which gave Bond the idea she was serious about this little street race. "Caroline?"

"Yes?"

"I'd suggest you fasten another seatbelt."

"What?"

Bond shifted gears again and pulled in behind the Ferrari. The mysterious woman pulled over to the left, which Bond also followed. They kept it up for some time until the woman once again pulled to another side. Bond could tell that she was keeping her eyes more on Bond's car than the road—a bulldozer was heading straight for her. At the last moment, she spotted the dozer and pulled into the other lane, where Bond rear ended her, sending her flying ahead.

"Are you trying to race her or kill her?" Caroline asked, nearly screaming.

"I'm trying to have a little fun, Caroline. Perhaps you should unwind, yourself."

"I'm already unwound, James! I'm quite certain I left most of my stomach thirty kilometers behind!"

"That's not what I mean," Bond said, emphasizing the word _mean._

The woman in the Ferrari decided to do something dramatic. She spun the car around and continued the race in reverse. She mockingly waved at Bond, keeping up with him despite the difference in velocity. Bond just smiled and waved back. Encouraging her could probably cause great hiliarity.

The Ferrari turned back around and continued on the right way. Bond moved to the other side of the road to avoid hitting another vehicle. Eventually, they drove into a construction zone. The Ferrari hit a a pile of dirt that had been dug up and dumped. It was propelled into the air and barely landed on all four wheels again. Bond swerved to avoid the same dirt pile, then continued on at a pace just behind the Ferrari.

"So," Bond said, "you never told me what you're evaluating me for."

"What?" Caroline was quite out of it.

"Why did M send you to evaluate me?"

"Oh, uh," the poor woman stuttered out. "M-M, um, is worried about how you're taking the death of Alec Trevelyan."

"Really?" Bond felt unnerved. Trevelyan's death had given him nightmares, but he didn't think it impeded his work too badly. It hadn't done him that badly after Vesper's death. Though M was unsure why, Bond felt it was obvious: the death of another Double-0 was sure to knock any agent out of it.

"Yes, really, James, now _please_ stop the bloody car!"

"Just a few moments, dear."

Bond shifted gears again and speed forward. He got a good glimpse at the woman in the Ferrari as he passed her—she was in shock. He hit the breaks, pulling the car to the side of the road, and put it in park. He looked over at Caroline and smiled. "How was that?"

"You scared the life out of me, Bond... I hope you understand that this _will_ go in my report to M."

"I was almost certain it would."

Caroline shruged and opened the door. "Look, Bond..."

"James."

"What?"

"Call me James, like you were earlier. Get in."

"What? You honestly think I'm getting back in a car with you?"

"We're forty miles away from Regent's Park. You think I'll let you walk the whole way?"

Bond pulled his car into a spot facing the casino entrance. He set his PPK back into its slot in the glove compartment. Presumably, he wouldn't need it. He pulled his money out of the glove compartment and stuffed the bills into two pockets of his dinner jacket.

As he passed the row of cars directly ahead of the casino, he spotted something very unexpected: the yellow Ferrari he'd been racing earlier that day. He checked the fake licence plate just to make sure, and it was.

The casino was bustling with activity when he entered. Specifically at a poker table being dominated by a very familiar woman in a large fur coat. She was smoking a cigarette in a long holder. The woman who drove the Ferrari was smiling until she saw Bond sit down across from her at the table. He was unaware as to whether or not she recognized him for who he was or for being the other crazy driver on the road hours earlier.

He, however, recognized her. Xenia Onatopp. She was a top ranking member of a mafia organization known as Janus. She was second only to the top man—Janus himself. She was known for her odd technique of killing: she would have sex with a man and then strangle him with her thighs.

"Good evening," he said, paying the banker behind him for some chips. "How's the street racing business?"

Xenia sighed. She looked visibly angered. "You're a good racer, sir."

"And you're just fine yourself, Miss?"

"Onatopp. Xenia Onatopp. I hope your as good a poker player as you are a driver, Mister?"

"Bond. James Bond."

Bond checked his cards. An ace of spades and four of diamonds. The five cards on the table were a king of clubs, ace of hearts, ace of diamonds, two of diamonds and jack of diamonds. Not a pleasurable set of cards.

"I'm certain you have lost, Mr. Bond."

"Y'know, you remind me of someone, though I can't quite remember who." Bond smiled. He was referring to Le Chiffre, the Quantum member that Bond had beaten in a game of no-limit Texas Hold 'Em. Le Chiffre had captured him, however, after the game, nearly castrated him. Bond had been saved by either fate or luck: a Quantum hitman had come in seconds before the Bond family heirloom had been stripped of him and shot Le Chiffre in the head. Moments later, Bond had been rescued by a CIA team led by Felix Leiter.

"A woman perhaps?" Onatopp asked, giving Bond a very faint smile.

"Not exactly."

At least two hours later, Bond was collecting his winnings. Onatopp had taken her first win too well, and that had been her undoing. She took Bond too lightly, and assumed he got bad hands every turn. About halfway through the game, she started to realize he wasn't as bad as he'd been the first round, and started to take him a bit more seriously. However, at that time, Bond had most assuredly won.

Onatopp lit another cigarette and walked toward the door. Bond got up and followed her, meeting her just before the door. "Y'know, I find three things you and I have in common," he said, opening the door for her.

"Cards and cars only makes two, Mr. Bond," she said with a smile. "Is the third where your real talent lies?"

"Perhaps. But it's not exclusive."

"Really?"

"Yes. Georgia."

"What?"

"You come from Georgia. Nasty place this time of year."

"Good with accents, are you?"

"Yes."

"So, have you been anywhere else in the Eastern Bloc?"

"A few places. I mostly stick around London, though."

"Georgia may be in the midst of a war, Mr. Bond, but we do have quite a few nice accomodations."

Bond smiled, then walked Onatopp outside. "Such as your Ferrari, there?"

"That is a friend's."

"Well, you should tell your friend that even the counterfeiters know what letter to start a fake licence plate with."

Her smile faded. A scowl replaced it. "Really? And what rank do you hold with the Department of Motor Vehicles?"

Bond smiled. "Y'know, I'm not quite sure. I think it's one of those ones that start with a 'C'."

Suddenly a man was standing behind Xenia. Large, mid-sixties, Navy. He didn't exactly look like Onatopp's type. Xenia smiled again. "This one is an admiral. Royal Navy."

"Bond," the admiral said, almost surprised. "It's been a while."

"Admiral Farrell, correct?"

Farrell smiled as well. "Shall we go, love?" he asked Xenia.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Bond," Xenia said, walking to the Ferrari with the admiral.

_I'm sure the pleasure was all mine, _Bond thought as he returned to his DBS.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four: La Fayette**_

Admiral Farrell's dead body fell to the floor as Xenia put her clothes back on. The other man in the room picked up Farrell's clothes and folded them over his arm. His eyes were fixed on her. "You met Bond today?"

"You told me to keep him alive."

"I know that, Onatopp."

She finished dressing. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Just steal the _Pirate,_ then meet up with Orumov in St. Petersburg. You'll get the rest of the instructions there." He turned his head. The scars on his face were more apparent than they had been before. "I'll use this to make sure our diversion makes it onto the ship so you can get away unscathed."

Xenia nodded, then the man walked out.

Xenia Onatopp feared no man. No man except one. The man known to her only as Janus. During the Georgian conflict, he had entered that battlefield on his own and taken her away from it, showing her the life she now had. She owed him a great deal because of what he'd done for her. He was very eager to collect on that whenever it suited him.

When she was done dressing, she left the room Farrell had registered. She was lucky they'd registered under fake names—anyone who found the body would not be able to discover her.

Janus' plan was coming ever closer to fruition.

In his flat, Bond awoke to the sound of his cell phone ringing. He grabbed it from his bedside table and answered the loud call. Tanner's voice came over the line. _"Bond, are you there?"_

"Yes, Tanner..."

"_We have a situation in the Channel. M want's you on it."_

"What kind of situation?"

"_A French battleship, the La Fayette, has been taken over by the Janus Crime Syndicate."_

"I'll be there in thirty minutes."

Bond rolled over onto Caroline and kissed her to wake her up. "What is it, James?"

"I have to go, M's orders." He kissed her again. "I'll see you later."

Twenty-seven minutes later, Bond pulled up to the group of police, Interpol, Royal Navy and French Secret Service officals who were watching the _La Fayette_ from the Britain side of the Channel. Bill Tanner, M's Chief of Staff, greeted Bond when he got out of his car. "Good to see you, 007," he said. Bond simply nodded.

"What's the problem?"

"A group of Janus terrorists took control of the ship at about six this morning. They've taken hostages and are demanding a cash sum or else the crew dies."

Bond took of his jacket and pulled his PPK out of his pocket. "I need a submachine gun," he said.

Tanner turned to the head of the police force. "Benson!" The man came running up and Bond grabbed the MP5K he had in his hands. "They've set bombs on the bridge and in the engine room. Q sent this for you," he pulled out a device the size of a pocket calculator, "says it's a bomb defuser."

"Lovely of him," Bond said. He had yet to meet the head of Q Branch. From what he'd heard, the man was a former Royal Air Force major, named Horace Boothroyd. He took the letter Q as a codename due to him being the quartermaster of the SIS.

Bond checked the MP5K and then walked along the dock to a small speedboat docked there. It took him five minutes to get from the dock to the boat, and there didn't seem to be any terrorists on the outside of the ship. That didn't seem right. There was a small ladder leading up to the main deck, which Bond pulled the boat alongside. He climbed up and still found no one. Either all the terrorists were on the inside of ship, or they had all gone.

Bond edged his way around to the stairs to the bridge. He climbed up and found a porthole to look through. Inside he saw four terrorists wearing blue camouflage holding a French Naval officer at gunpoint. Bond walked over to the nearest door and slowly opened it. None of the four terrorists noticed him, so he hid behind the console nearest the door.

He couldn't risk blind-firing from behind the console, there was a chance he might hit the hostage. Instead, he barely slipped out and carefully aimed. The man closest to the hostage was the one who actually had his gun trained on him. Bond squeezed the trigger and put a bullet in his brain. That corpse had a slight domino effect on two of the other three, while the last spun around and spray-fired his weapon at the console Bond was behind. This time, Bond did risk a blind-fire with his PPK and took out the final man. The two who had fallen down had gotten back up, and were spray-firing on Bond's position. Bond stood up and shot both of them in the head.

The hostage was cowering on the floor, in the corner opposite the door Bond had entered through. It wasn't much of a problem, so Bond just left him there. He pulled out the bomb defuser and set to work finding the bomb in the room. It was quite simple—underneath the console in the center of the room. Bond defused it and exited through a second door, directly behind that console.

Bond walked slowly through several rooms before coming upon another group of terrorists and hostages. This time, two hostages were being held at gunpoint by between seven and nine terrorists. Bond could not get a clear shot from the hallway outside the room, and there was no way inside the room without being killed. He needed a diversion.

An unwanted diversion came seconds later, when a terrorist opened a hatchway into the hall and spotted Bond standing there. Bond spun around and shot the terrorist, who let out one reflex fire just before falling to the ground. Bond took position at the side of the door and took out each terrorist as they exited the room. Two gunshots came from inside the room. Bond rushed in and saw one of the hostages grappling with the last remaining terrorist. The second hostage was against the wall, a bullet in his arm. Bond took aim and put a bullet through the terrorist's head.

Something was not right about this. Bond could feel it. Hopefully, gaining entrance to the lower levels of the ship would solve something.

Xenia landed the _Pirate_ on the landing pad outside Janus' headquarters in St. Petersburg. She was amazed—not for the first time—that the Russian government had just accepted the misplacement of one of their missile trains. A door opened, and General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov stepped out, putting on his wool cap. He did not seem pleased.

"Onatopp!" he shouted, "You are late!"

She stepped out of the helicopter. "I had to stop off for fuel," she said, putting on her own cap.

He shook his head. "We have enough to go to Severnaya?"

"Of course."

"Then let's go."

Ourumov climbed into the helicopter, into the weapon's seat. Xenia smiled, then climbed into the pilot's seat. Their mission was about to begin.

Bond descended the stairs and found a dead hostage at the bottom. He'd thought he heard gunshots before he started down. The noises of the engine room could faintly be heard through the walls.

He opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and found a the engine room. There were only two terrorists that he could see, holding one hostage. The only console in the room was directly ahead of him. He walked over to it, keeping his footsteps light, and checked it for the engine room bomb. It was, indeed, located there. He used the defuser and deactivated the bomb. No danger of a French corvette at the bottom of the English Channel.

Bond descended the stairway to the main floor of the engine room. The terrorist holding his weapon to the hostage lowered it for a second to light a cigarette. Bond took this opportunity and shot him in the head. He put a bullet in the other terrorist's head before he got the chance to shoot.

Bond breathed a sigh of relief: he'd taken out every terrorist on the ship and saved most of the hostages. He still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd missed something. He led the hostages to the bridge. One of them happened to be the driver, who moved the ship to dock on the British side of the Channel.

Passing by the officer who'd lent Bond his MP5K, Bond handed it back to him, then walked over to Tanner. "Something wasn't right about it."

"We know, now. We were contacted by the French government shortly after you boarded. An experimental stealth helicopter with EM shielding was stolen from the ship sometime last night, when it was brought to the Channel."

"A stealth helicopter?"

"Yes. This got quite a bit complicated, Bond."

"It has. I need to see her."

"I'll tell her when I get back to the Office."

"I need to head back to my flat. I'll be by later."

Bond walked over to his car and sat down inside. He grabbed his PDA out of his glove compartment and pulled up the classified MI6 files. He used M's username and password, then looked up Xenia Onatopp. Skills listed were torture, infiltration, interrogation, assassination, getaway driving... and helicopter piloting. Next he checked the French registration center for the _La Fayette_ on the French Naval center. The last person to register any people aboard the _La Fayette_ was British Admiral Charles Farrell.

Bond's suspicions had been proven correct, and he was none too happy about that.


	5. Chapter 5

_**Chapter Five: Severnaya**_

Natalya Fyodoronva Simonova did not believe she could ever be more angry at Boris Ivanovich Grishenko. On her laptop screen was the image of a big breasted bimbo—Boris' personal password screen—asking for the answer to a question that no one knew. No one except Boris Grishenko. The Chief of Computers had already docked Boris five months pay for his stupid whore games, but he kept them up (some suspected he had already adjusted his pay behind the Chief's back, basically negating the effects of his pay dock) and no one could really stop him, as he was the best programmer in the complex.

Natalya turned to her friend, Anna, and asked her what the code could be. Her response was simply this: "If he could ever get a woman into bed with him, I'm certain she'd be ashamed that she'd lower herself that far." This made Natalya smile.

Because the question was known only to Boris, she rolled her chair over to him and tapped him on the shoulder. He paid her no mind, only kept to his work. The second time, she whispered, "Boris," into his ear very sweetly. Still, he gave her no attention. This time she screamed his name, right in his ear.

"Goddamn, woman! I heard you the first time!"

"Acknowledge us poor, lowly women sometimes, then, dumbass. Now, tell me, what's the password?" She pointed to her computer.

Boris smiled. "You'll like this one, darling. 'They're right in front of you and can open _very_ large doors. What are they?'"

Natalya truly felt like punching the bastard in the face and knocking off his stupid glasses. She rolled back over to her own station and typed in the word 'KNOCKERS' in the field. The breasts of the bimbo on the screen inflated, then the screen was replaced by Natalya's requested system.

Some day, she'd really love to just shoot Boris Grishenko.

Suddenly, he started typing rapidly on his own terminal. He had a very dastardly grin on his face. Natalya sighed, then rolled over to him again. The US Department of Justice's screen was up. "What do you think you're doing?" she asked him.

"I've hacked into the US Department of Justice, isn't it obvious?"

"Shut up, Boris. You know what I meant."

"What does it matter?"

"Well then, what do you think will happen when you're discovered?"

"The Chief will call me a genious, move me to Moscow, and pay me the greatest riches in Russia—all for my groundbreaking hard work."

"I think not."

"Ah, who cares? The Americans are slugheads. Fools will never detect me."

A window opened up on the monitor. **UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED PLEASE EXIT NOW**. Boris did not look happy. "You were saying, slughead?"

"Dammit!" He typed in a command, then his scowl was replaced by another smile. "Nobody screws with Boris Grishenko!" He sent a spike to the DOJ's web server, then started laughing.

"You can't be serious..." Natalya said, sitting back in her chair.

Boris quit laughing, then a field appeared on the screen. Boris typed in **BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME—SLUGHEADS** and closed the link. "Yes! I am invincible!" He sighed, as if he'd just finished up a delightful evening with with some Novograd whore in the middle of a parking lot. "Was it good for you, too?"

"So good in fact, my dear Boris, that I'm going to go finish up in the washroom. Maybe you should try something else next time."

"Funny girl, Ms. Simonova. I'm going outside for a cigarette."

Boris slid his card into the reader and walked outside. He pulled a pack of Malboros from the pocket of his parka and stuffed one of the cancer sticks in his mouth. He flicked the lighter on, but it went out after a second. He looked around. It wasn't as windy as it had been the day before, and his lighter worked then. He flicked it again, and it went out again. The third time was when he heard the sound—a helicopter. He looked up and saw one was coming in to land. It was less than five feet from the pad. Boris ducked down as the chopper finished its landing run and the cockpit opened up.

Xenia spotted the weasel-looking technician by the door the moment she set the chopper down. Ourumov told her to ignore him, then they walked inside the bunker.

Ourumov stopped at the glass door which separated the entrance and the main room. It was a voice-print analyzer. "General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov. Head of Space Division." The device beeped twice, then allowed them entry into the building. Major Markov walked up to them and saluted. He visibly had sweat dripping from his chin. "At ease, Major. Where is Colonel Sukhov?"

"He is ill today, General, and placed me in temporary command. To what do we owe the pleasure, General?"

"This is an unscheduled test of this facility. We're going to use the GoldenEye in a war simulation. Detonate over an uninhabited area of Russia."

"GoldenEye, sir? Today?"

"How many satalites are in operation?"

"Um... two, sir. Ivan and Viktor."

"Bring up the keys and access codes for Satalite Ivan, please."

"Yes sir."

Markov walked to the back of the room, where there was a large wall decoration which appeared to be an eyeball. In reality, the wall decoration was a safe, in which a large square block and two keys were held. The two keys were similar to those used to on nuclear missiles, while the square block was needed to send guidance data to a GoldenEye from any antenna powerful enough with the right systems set up.

Markov returned to Ourumov and Xenia and handed Ourumov the keys and the block. "Thank you, Major," he said, then he turned to Xenia and said, "Do it."

Xenia smiled, then unslung the AKS-74U from her shoulder and started firing. Markov died first, then two guards who rushed in from the door opposite the entrance, then the computer programmers. Each one died of either one or two bullets in the head.

Xenia then followed Ourumov to the main computer, where everything necessary for the activation of the GoldenEye was. Ourumov placed the block into the computer, then inserted one key and handed the other to Xenia. "On my count. One, two, three." Both turned the keys and a button panel raised up from the console. "Set the target," he said to her, "Severnaya." Xenia tapped at the keys, setting the coordinates of the Severnaya facility as the firing point. "The satalite will deactivate shortly after and fall out of orbit. It will certainly just float away into oblivion."

Xenia smiled, then slung the AK back over her shoulder and began walking back to the door. At the last second, she saw the hand hitting the alarm switch. She quickly pulled out her Makarov and shot the man in the head. Apparently, she'd missed someone before.

"Don't worry about it," Ourumov said, walking past her. "We have less than fifteen minutes before the satalite pulses the area. Their best response time is nineteen minutes. They'll be late no matter what."

Bond stepped off of the elevator on M's floor and entered the office of M's new personal secretary. Ms. Jane Moneypenny had just recently started her employment to MI6. M had appointed her because of her ability to dictate messages quite quickly and understandably. She was capable of keeping quiet in matters official and unoffical. Quite a necessary skill for the intelligence community.

Unsurprisingly, Moneypenny was working at her desk when Bond arrived. She visibly brightened up when he walked through the door.

"Ja—um, Mr. Bond," she said, her youth ever obvious.

"Good evening, Penny."

She blushed at his words. He'd always assumed his little nickname for her was somewhat embarassing to her. "Um, M and Mr. Tanner are waiting for you in the conference room, sir."

Bond smiled, then walked over to her desk. "Come now, Moneypenny. Surely we could, say, spend a few minutes together before I have to return to work."

The box on the desk came to life, with M's voice coming over the transciever. _"Ms. Moneypenny, send 007 in. We've already been waiting ninety minutes."_

Bond smiled, as did Moneypenny. "She's waiting for you, Mr. Bond."

Bond walked inside the conference room and saw M seated across from the door. Tanner standing by the screen on the wall.

"I advise you not to try to convert Ms. Moneypenny to your sordid sex campain, 007," M said as he sat down at the table. She didn't even look up from her folder. "Now, what do you know about Severnaya?"

"Nothing, why?"

"The _Pirate_ helicopter that was stolen from the _La Fayette_ was spotted there by one of our satalites five minutes ago."

She looked over to Tanner, who tapped the wall screen and showed the satalite image. The _Pirate_ was sitting on the landing pad, with two figures walking toward it.

"We can't see their faces, but we're certain the thinner one is Xenia Onatopp."

"Squeezing the life out of the helicopter, it seems," Tanner said, attempting to make a joke. Bond ignored him.

Bond stood up and walked over to the wall screen. He tapped the door the two occupants had come from. "What's this?"

"_That_ , 007, is the Severnaya Space Weapons Development Center. A project that was begun during the time of the USSR. They're still denying it to this day," M answered, standing up and walking over to the screen. She tapped off to the side, which moved the focus of the screen to three MiGs. "Shortly before now, these three MiGs took off from a nearby airbase."

"And what are the Russians using this base for?"

Tanner answered, "Two years ago, 009 infiltrated and discovered technical specs for something called 'GoldenEye'. We know nothing else about it because she was captured before she could report back anything other than the name, but we do know that it was spearheaded by this man," he tapped the screen, an image of Arkady Ourumov appeared on the screen, "General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov. He's the new head of Russia's Space Division."

"He ran the chemical weapons facility at Arkangelsk," Bond said as he studied the image. "He's the one who shot Alec Trevelyan."

"Don't make this personal, 007," M said, walking back to her chair. "Trevelyan died a year ago. A vendetta against this man would not be a very good position for you."

Bond tapped on the screen to return the image to that of the MiGs. They were close to ten minutes away from the Severnaya facility. "These images are live, correct?"

"Unlike the Americans, we'd prefer if we didn't get our bad news from CNN."

Natalya still could not believe the carnage in the room. There didn't seem to be anyone alive. And one person just happened to be missing: Boris Grishenko. Was that womanizing bastard behind this? Was he involved in any way?"

Natalya didn't want to stay there. She walked over to the door and tapped on the console next to it. "Natalya Fyodoronva Simonova." The console beeped three times, then a red light appeared.

"_Clearance revoked by General Ourumov."_

Natalya glared at the thin box. Revoked by General Ourumov? The head of Space Division himself? What the hell was happening? "Why was clearance revoked by General Ourumov?"

"_Classified."_

"Damn it!" She punched the panel next to the wall.

An alarm sounded. _"One minute until GoldenEye firing."_

_Why is GoldenEye firing? _she asked herself.

Bond had sat back down and was going over Ourumov's and Onatopp's files when the screen went black, then filled with static. All three of the room's occupants looked up. M stood up and walked over to it, her face showing nothing more than surprise. "What the bloody hell was that?" she asked, turning back to Tanner.

Bond stood up. "This could be what GoldenEye is," he said, looking M in the eye. "Maybe somebody used it on the Russians themselves."


	6. Chapter 6

_**Chapter Six: Assignment GoldenEye**_

Tanner was on the phone. M was sitting in her seat, growing impatient. Bond was sitting patiently, playing solitare with a deck of cards he found in a drawer. He currently had half the cards uncovered. Suddenly, Tanner put the phone back on the pad.

"Well?" M said, standing up.

"Our satalite just stopped working. Same with two of the American's CIA satalites. Another of ours is being repositioned as we speak, and will be online shortly. From what we can tell, an electromagnetic pulse weapon was used. After it happened, a Russian satalite orbiting in the vicinity of Severnaya left orbit and floated away."

"GoldenEye," Bond said, bundling the cards back up.

"We believe so," Tanner said, finishing up his statement. As soon as he finished, the screen came back on with the image of Severnaya. What appeared was a shocking sight. Two of the three MiGs that had been on course to the base had crashed into the groupings of false huts and shacks that adorned the area around the dish. The third had crashed into the dish itself, destroying a great deal of landscape in the process. No electronic lights were on in the entire area, which was standard with electromagnetic pulse.

"God in Heaven," M said, walking over to the screen. "What happened there?"

"Electromagnetic pulse would disable any electronic circuit within the target radius," Bond answered, placing the deck back in its box. "Those three MiGs would have had no chance. The pilots probably died directly upon impact."

"Especially the one who hit the dish," M said, tapping the screen and walking back over to her chair. "This is most disturbing."

Natalya got out from under her desk and looked around. The chaos was the first thing easily evident. Beams and pillars down everywhere. Fires were raging all over the main floor. A good deal of the ceiling was gone. Snow was flittering down into the room.

She walked around and saw her friend Anna, her chest impaled by one of the girders which had fallen. At least she was already dead when it happened.

Natalya walked back to the terminal beside the exit and said her name. Nothing happened.

She started to cry. There was no way out, now. Her friends and coworkers all dead. There was little she had left. Her family lived half the country away from her current location.

Natalya looked up and saw more and more snow falling through the hole in the ceiling. The satalite dish had fallen through the ceiling. The dish was a normal satalite dish, covered with cross-hatching mesh designed to filter all the transmissions directly to the GoldenEye satalites.

_Maybe I can use it to climb out... _she thought.

She grabbed onto a part of the dish which was about a foot over her head and hoisted herself upwards. It was a long and tedious climb to the top, but she got there. At one point, a piece of the mesh broke off and she nearly slipped, but she got back up.

It had gotten colder since she was last outside. A storm was kicking up. Choppy winds and gusts of icy snow were hitting Natalya hard. She almost wanted to go back down into the bunker, but that would be the stupidest idea she'd ever had.

A noise caught her attention. It was coming from a tree line sixty yards away. She looked over and saw a dog sled and dogs. The musher was feeding them.

"Hello!" she shouted, hoping the man would hear.

He turned her way. "Hello there!"

_Oh, thank God..._

Bond watched as the figure climbed the dish and made their way to the surface. Whoever they were, they were very, very lucky.

"Bond," M said, catching his attention. "What is it?"

"Some one just climbed up the dish."

"What?" She rushed over to the screen and saw the small outline of the person running towards the woods some yards away. "Who are they?"

"Quite possibly some one who was caught up in the attack. It wouldn't be the traitor themselves, they wouldn't have stayed there for the fireworks."

"How do you know that."

"The _Pirate,_" Bond looked at Tanner, "you said it was electromagnetically shielded. If the GoldenEye was an EMP weapon, the _Pirate_ was the best way to steal anything needed to use the GoldenEye again. Destruction of the base makes it seem as though the only facility needed for the GoldenEye was destroyed, and therefore there would be no reason to use it again."

"You think whoever stole the helicopter stole the necessary equipment to use the GoldenEye because they have a satalite capable of using it?"

"Well, I doubt they'd steal the helicopter because it looks good."

"Are you talking the Janus group?"

"Onatopp is a member, she stole the helicopter. I doubt they'd go freelance for some other terrorist organization."

Tanner finally spoke up. "If that were the case, what's Janus' motive?"

"Maybe we'll find out soon."

M said, "Sooner than that, 007. I want you to track down Janus and stop them. Even if Janus isn't behind this, taking them down will give us whoever did."

"Well then. I'll need a flight to St. Petersburg, and some equipment."

"Your flight will be arranged as soon as possible. Stop by Q Branch on level 10 for any equipment."

Bond stepped into the Q Branch laboratory on level 10 and saw a good deal of people working on a good deal of things. One in particular was rolling around in a wheelchair, telling people what to do. Bond walked toward the man, but was spotted by him within seconds.

"Ah! 007," the man said as he wheeled over to him.

"Major Boothroyd, I presume," Bond responded.

"Correct. Please, pay attention to some of the equipment here." Boothroyd stood up out of his wheelchair and walked over to a table, where three people were working on what looked like a belt. "Oh, and don't touch the wheelchair."

"Is it on loan from a friend?"

"No, if you depress either of the pads on the arms, a rocket hidden in the legging will fire."

Bond laughed. "Quite a handicap, wouldn't you say?"

"Indeed." Boothroyd held up the belt. "This appears to be a typical leather belt, correct?"

"I suppose it's some kind of laser or something?"

"Please! We reserved that for your watch. This is a rappelling cord, designed to fit your weight."

"Mine?"

"And only yours. If you're carrying anything but minimal equipment, or even another person, the rappelling function will be useless."

Bond picked up the watch sitting on the table. "The laser, I take it?"

"Correct." Boothroyd walked over to the DBS sitting in the corner. "Your Aston Martin DBS. We've added a few modifications, the least of which include machine guns behind the grill."

"I was starting to like that car."

"Follow me now, 007." Boothroyd walked over to another table, at which was a small fountain pen. "What do you make of this, 007?"

Bond picked it up. "Pen. Probably writes in black ink. Used by many for documentation purposes and used by few for very odd reasons."

"Dare I ask what those 'odd reasons' are?"

Bond placed the pen back on the table. "If you value your sanity, I'd suggest not."

"Well, this is much more than just a pen. If you click the pen three times, a four second fuse will begin, after which the pen will explode with the force of a class four grenade. Click it three more times in those four seconds, and you'll deactivate the bomb." Boothroyd held the pen out for Bond, who took it and put it in his own pocket. "We have something else for you."

Boothroyd walked over to the gun station in the smallest corner of the room. Bond almost laughed—Q Branch's main job was to create weapons, yet the most obvious of weapons, firearms, were in a very small area. It was very humorous. "Give me your weapon, please." Bond reached into his shoulder holster and took out his PPK. "This is SIS new issue," Boothroyd pulled out another handgun, "the Walther P99. Fifteen round magazine, one round in the chamber. Nine-milimeter. More accurate, less capable of jamming."

"Sounds pretty reliable."

"For your sake, 007, I hope it is."

Bond followed Boothroyd over to a sheet of plate glass. It seemed to be in place for the safety of those viewing what was on the other side. In this case, it was a man in an ejector seat being fired off. "Listen, 007," Boothroyd started, "it would be wise of you to return most if not all of this equipment in pristine order, or else Q Branch will probably find you responsible for well over a million pounds government property destruction—what the hell do you think you're doing?" Bond had been inspecting what appeared to be bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich on rye bread with mayonase. "Put that down!"

"What is it? Some kind of poisoned food, to be used against a foreign dictator?"

"No, you damned buffoon!" Boothroyd grabbed the sandwich away from Bond. "It's my bloody lunch!"


	7. Chapter 7

_**Chapter Seven: Arrival in Russia**_

Ourumov showed his identification to the man stationed at the guard post outside Defense Minister Mishkin's headquarters. He had everything he needed to please the man, he just had to make sure Mishkin believed him.

Seventeen people were seated around the table, including Defense Minister Mishkin. "I'm apologize for my tardiness, Defense Minister, I was held up in traffic."

"Understandable, General." Mishkin leaned back in his chair. "You report on the incident in Severnaya?"

Ourumov sat down. "Approximately three days ago, Siberian Separatists assaulted the Severnaya Space Weapons Development Center. They stole a prototype weapon codenamed GoldenEye, and without knowledge of what it was used for, accidentally used it on themselves. We assume that one of the base personnel called in air force reinforcements. Three of our MiGs went down when the GoldenEye fired upon Severnaya."

"I presume base personnel all perished in the destruction of the base?"

"Correct."

"I went over the reports, two Severnaya personnel are missing. Programmers."

Ourumov felt himself frown. "I was aware of one, Defense Minister, and an unidentified body was found at the base. We assumed it was that of Boris Grishenko."

"There was a woman, also. Natalya Simonova, Level Two programmer. Her body was not discovered among the dead, nor were any matching her description."

"I see, Defense Minister. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

Mishkin appeared to be suspecting something. "It would seem strange that you project blame onto Siberian Separatists when the whereabouts of your own people are uncertain. I will speak to you on this subject later, General Ourumov."

Ourumov stood and walked out of the building. Grishenko hadn't mentioned another programmer. He got back in his car and drove to the safehouse Janus had set him up with. It was a relatively nice place, considering its location in the slum district of St. Petersburg.

He walked up the stairs, nodded to the two guards posted outside, then entered the single room apartment. Grishenko was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Few of his wounds had healed from the two days of being beaten to death by Ourumov, Onatopp and various of Janus' top interrogators.

Ourumov sat in the chair in front of Grishenko after closing the door. He undid his tie, took off his hat and his jacket. "Boris," he said, lightly, "talk to me."

Grishenko spit out blood. "What do you want?" he slurred.

"What is this I hear of Natalya Simonova?"

Boris looked up. "Natalya? She was in the base when you arrived..."

"She's not dead. She's unaccounted for."

"Natalya's... alive?"

"And we need to find her, Boris. And we need your help."

Boris didn't look up, he just spit out more blood.

Natalya got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her chest. She used a hand towel to dry her hair, then sat down on the hotel room bed. The email icon on her laptop was flashing. She double-clicked the icon and an avatar of Boris' face appeared in an instant message box.

**BGRISHENKO: **Natalya, what's going on?

Natalya typed in her response: General Ourumov used GoldenEye on the base.

**BGRISHENKO: **Where are you?

**NSIMONOVA: **St. Petersburg. You?

**BGRISHENKO: **Same. Meet me at the church across from the slum district.

Natalya didn't respond to the computer.

_I hope this is a good idea, _she thought.

Bond stepped off the plane into the busiest airport in all of Russia. St. Petersburg was Russia's most populace city, as well. It was one reason Bond hated going to St. Petersburg. He walked out into the street and saw a man standing against a car, reading a newspaper. What struck Bond as odd was that the newspaper was in English, not Russian.

Bond walked over to the man and leaned against the car with him. "Got somethin' to say, buddy?" the man asked. His accent American.

"Only that in London, April's a spring month."

The man sighed, almost as if he was disappointed. "Good God, another stiff-assed Brit. Secret codes, passwords. How Felix ever put up with you bastards is amazing."

"Know Felix, eh?"

"Yeah. C'mon, my car's over here."

The man led Bond from the nice looking BMW he was standing beside to a junker VW Beetle, painted red and blue. He grabbed Bond's back and stuck it in the luggage compartment in the front of the vehicle. Bond took his chance—no one was looking—and grabbed the American by the collar, pushed him against the driver's door and drew his new P99. "Show me the rose."

The American groaned. "You want me to do it _here_?"

"Yes."

" Ah, for chrissakes..." the American turned around and pulled his pants down, revealling the tattoo of a rose, with the word _muffy_ underneath. "Happy now?"

Bond let him pull his pants up. "'Muffy'?"

"Third wife." The American smiled. "Jack Wade, CIA."

"James Bond, stiff-assed Brit."

Wade laughed. "Heard about that sense of humour of yours from Felix. He's got nothing but good things to say about you."

"That so?"

"Yeah. Hey, Bond?"

"Yes?"

"You ever do any gardening?"

Natalya entered the church, looking for Boris. He was nowhere to be found. She wasn't very happy at that. A priest was standing at the alter. "Excuse me." Natalya waved to get his attention. "Excuse me, has there been a man here, about my height with glasses?"

"No, madame."

Natalya cursed Boris Ivanovich's name. The bastard could not be expected to arrive on time any more than he can be expected to treat any woman around him like worthwile human beings.

She walked away from the priest, towards the door. As she approached, it opened wide. Three people stepped in. One, she didn't suspect: Boris Ivanovich Grishenko. The second was a woman—just the kind of woman she expected Boris to be with—who was wearing a rather large fur coat. The third was General Ourumov.

"Natalya Fyodoronva Simonova, I presume?" Ourumov asked. Natalya nodded in surprise. "Good. Xenia, take her. Grishenko, come with me."

The woman—Xenia, it seemed was her name—grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along.

Ourumov watched as Xenia threw Simonova into the chair and tied her up. Grishenko was cowering in a corner. The physical abuse had taken its toll on him. He was now willing to do almost anything.

Ourumov leaned against the wall in front of her. "Miss Simonova. I had your friend, Comrade Grishenko, in this chair just as I have you. I don't understand how you escaped your fate at Severnaya facility, but I do know that you've lived solely to die very soon."

"What is going on? Why does the head of Space Division have to steal his own weapon?"

Ourumov frowned. "That is none of your business."

"He won't tell you anything, Natalya," Boris said, standing up. "He wouldn't tell me anything, either. All he did was punch. And punch, and punch until I started talking. You don't deserve that."

"And yet you put me in this situation, Boris!"

Ourumov walked toward her and grabbed her by the face. "If you do not shut _up_, you stupid wench, I'll kill you before our plan comes into action."

The cool British accent was still chilling to him. "Yes, General Ourumov, _our_ plan." Ourumov turned around. Janus had entered the room. "And _our_ plan is about to be well underway." He walked over to Natalya. "Tell me, how would you like to be bait for Her Majesty's best spy?"

Wade's car had broken down a half-mile from the CIA safehouse set up in St. Petersburg. Bond was leaning against the car as Wade was on his knees fixing the engine. Bond had to say, even Camille had a better working VW than Wade. "Y'know, Wade, I think I'm starting to regret not bringing my Aston Martin."

"Yeah, British cars. Good old American inginuity's what everybody needs."

"Volkswagon is German."

Wade looked up at him, sour-faced. "Yeah, well... Lookin' for Janus, right? St. Petersburg's the best place to start, but you probably won't find him anywhere in the city istelf."

"Why's that?"

"Nobody's seen the bastard. He'd be dead if they had. He's on some old Soviet missile train, last I knew."

"Soviet missile train? You mean twenty years after the Union's dissolution, they're still letting those things slip into hostile hands?"

"Twenty years, hell, those things'll be poppin' up everywhere for the next fifty years. Honestly, I think Janus may have some clandestine help from somebody high up in the Russian military."

"Arkady Ourumov."

"Oh, him. Christ! Didn't know about that."

Bond reached into the car and pulled out his new watch. "Does Janus have any enemies in St. Petersburg?"

"Oh, enemies, Jesus, Jimbo, I can't tell you how many enemies the man has. Mostly Russian mafia, but there are some political ones, too." Wade grabbed a sledge hammer from his tools and hit the engine with it. It roared to life quickly, then sputtered again. "Ah, goddamnit! Shit!"

"Who's his biggest threat at the moment?"

"That'd be a feller by the name of Valentin Zukovsky. Has a limp in his right leg, all sorts of other shit."

Bond recognized the name. "Valentine Dimitreveych Zukovsky? Ex-KGB?"

"You know him?"

"I gave him the limp."


	8. Chapter 8

_**Chapter Eight: Statues Make Great Meeting Places**_

The warehouse district of St. Petersburg wasn't exactly a welcome place. There were dozens of mafia goons hanging around one with the number 23 stenciled on the side. Bond watched as a group of well-dressed people stepped out of two or three limosines parked out front.

"Here we go," Wade said, leaning back in his seat, "Valentin works in building number 23, has ever since he got his limp two years ago."

"Well, I'm sure he'll remember me." Bond stuck his P99 into his shoulder holster and stepped out of the car.

"Yo, James," Wade rolled down the window, "be careful with Valentin. Last guy who dropped in uninvited went home Air Freight 120, and the boxes could fit in the palm of your hand."

Bond smiled. "I'm sure you'll send me back first class, Air London."

Wade laughed. "Yeah, just be real careful, Jimbo."

Bond considered going through the front door, but it would have been a major risk. Zukovsky usually had a lot of goons inside, and brashly just walking in was a quick way to an unmarked grave. There was a pipe along the side, which eventually led to a ledge with three or four windows along the wall. That was his way in. He ran over to it, touched it, made sure it wasn't a steam pipe or anything otherwise too hot to touch. Luckily, it wasn't, and he started his way up. The climb was easy, but the ledge was very small.

The window he climbed through led to what appeared to be Valentin's office. Everything in it screamed the man's personality. Bond knew that if Valentin wasn't in his office now, he would be in the near future. He couldn't stay near his business for very long. Bond backed up against the wall the door was on. He drew his P99 and waited.

Bond was almost asleep when Valentin finally entered his office. The big man was walking on a cane, now. His leg was probably still hurting. Bond raised his P99 and leveled it at Valentin's head. Valentin stopped in his tracks. "Still a Walther, but it seems you've swtiched from your PPK, eh, James?"

"SIS new issue. Just got it a few days ago."

"So, MI6 is still using you as a, what did M call you, a 'blunt instrument'?"

"You could say that, Valentin."

Valentin turned around. He'd grown a mild beard since the last time they'd met. "So, what is this about? MI6 need more money?"

Bond smiled. "Please. With what we got from Le Chiffre, I don't think we need anything."

"So, you got your money back? That's good to hear. Now, what is this about, James?"

"Janus."

"Have you finally pissed him off, too?"

"The other way around."

"Oh, so he's pissed you off. What's he done to deserve you?"

"Stole a helicopter."

"Jesus Christ, man! I've got six of the damned things."

"Actually, you've got three. And none of them fly."

Valentin laughed. "Been keeping tabs on me since last we met? You know, Melina still wishes you'd return."

"Sorry to disappoint her. So, are you going to set me up with Janus, or am I going to have to shoot you in the other knee?"

"You know, Mr. Bond, I must say, you should have killed me."

Bond walked over to Valentin and sat down behind the man's desk. Valentin sat down in the chair opposite. "Call it professional courtesy."

"Courtesy? Shall I extend the same to you?" Valentin reached into his suit and pulled out a Browning HP, which he leveled at Bond's chest.

"Not really. Just set me up with Janus."

Valentin laughed again. Bond smiled. "Fine, James. I have never met Janus himself, though I know a representative of his organization. I warn you, she's a feisty lady," he gave a laugh as he said _feisty_.

"Onatopp."

"So you know her as well? Good. I hope you understand what you're getting into when you meet up with her. I'll spread the word, she'll met you, she'll take you to see the Cossack himself."

"Cossack?"

"Janus. His parents were Lienz Cossacks. I assume you know who they were?"

"The group who helped the Nazis against the Russians during World War II."

"Good boy. After the war, all the Cossacks went back to England, hoping to be reintegrated into society, but, well, I'm sure you know the end of that story."

"England sent them packing. Russia picked them up. They all died."

"Not all of them," Valentin said, standing up. He placed his gun on the desk. "Janus' parents survived, underground, for a great many years. I assume you still take a vodka martini?"

"You know how I take it?"

Valentin stepped over to his bar on the opposite wall. "Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shaken until ice cold and a add a peel of lemon."

Bond smiled. "I'm quite surprised, Valentin. Maybe you should have opened a bar instead of starting a mafia organization."

"Maybe I will, in about a hundred years time."

"So, where's this meeting going to be?"

"I would say, your hotel."

"I assume you know where that is?"

"Of course."

Bond had been a good swimmer before he joined MI6. He'd won the Royal Navy diving award in 1999. He'd been quite adept at tuning out the effects of the water on his hearing, and was capable of hearing someone talking to him while his head was submerged almost two feet underwater.

So, as he swam, it was quite easy to hear the light steps of a woman walking along the pool toward the sauna where his clothes were. Bond stepped out of the pool as the Xenia Onatopp ducked behind the wall, out of his sight. He sighed, then walked into the room. He pretended to ignore her, then walked over to his clothes. She slipped toward him, but he was much quicker. He drew his P99 and pointed it straight at her face.

"You know why I'm here, so don't even think about anything."

Xenia laughed. "Oh, please, Mr. Bond, James Bond. I'm quite certain you know that women such as me really need to have our needs met."

Xenia leapt onto Bond, pushing him to the ground. Bond dropped the P99 and let out a sharp grunt of pain. Xenia wrapped her legs around his waist and dug her nails into his chest. The pain was almost worse than what Le Chiffre had done to him on the cargo ship in Montenegro. Bond tried to push her off, but only succeeded in getting her fingernails out of his flesh. He grabbed the P99 again and once again pointed it at her face.

"Get off of me, or I am going to shoot!" he shouted. She just knocked the gun out of his hand and grabbed his neck. She started squeezing, the whole time Bond found it increasingly difficult to breath. The woman had a surprising amount of strength. He grabbed her arms and pulled them away from his neck, then pushed her off of him and picked up the gun again. "Now," he said, rubbing his neck, "let's try this again... Either take me to Janus, or I'll kill you."

"_Bastard!_" she screamed.

Xenia put the car in park just outside the gate to St. Petersburg's statue graveyard. Bond kept his P99 trained on the back of her head. "Is this it?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered, sounding obviously fatigued. "He'll be waiting for you by the Cossack statue."

"That doesn't sound surprising."

Bond left the car, but kept his handgun trained on Xenia. "You don't need the gun," she said, "he'll know exactly what you're thinking."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"I'm sure you will."

Bond walked away from the car and entered the statue park. He saw several dark figures running around the place, between the shadows. Bond made sure his weapon was ready—it was likely to be a long night.

The first soldiers revealed themselves within minutes of Bond's arrival into the park proper. The first one dove out of the shadows and started firing as soon as he hit the ground. Bond ducked behind a statue as a stream of bullets went past and then into the statue. It was time to put his new P99 to the test. Bond blind-fired around the statue and hit the one soldier in one of his limbs. The firing stopped for a few moments, so Bond carefully edged his way around the statue and nearly avoided a twelve guage round hitting the side of the statue he was on.

"Cease fire!" shouted a voice. Bond risked a peek—

—and saw the one man he never expected to see: Alec Trevelyan.

His face was remarkably scarred. Burns took a while to heal, and his barely had. And, just like the evil God who's namesake had become Trevelyan's new persona, only half of his face appeared that way. Once side was exactly the same as Bond remembered it, while the other was hideously unrecognizable.

"Come on out, James, and just put your gun away. Please don't think me so stupid that I haven't anticipated every move you'll make."

Bond stepped out and lowered his P99. Tevelyan was standing right next to the Cossak statue, just as Xenia said he would. "Alec."

"You don't seem surprised?"

"You had Ourumov on your payroll a year ago. He didn't kill anyone but you on the Arkangelsk mission."

"Well done. MI6's record of you was quite accurate. You are quite good at deduction. I heard you even found out M's name and computer records."

"Something like that." Bond put his P99 back in his shoulder holster. "Did MI6 know about your parents being Cossacks?"

"Of course they did. However, they didn't think I'd remember. I was five years old, most children block those things out. But I remember what my father taught me. 'Never trust a Brit, Little Alec', he'd say. And I never did. 'They'll toss you out, just like they did me. You'll never get anything from them but hate'."

"What do you expect? Your parents helped the Nazis."

"We've never lived in a time of war, James. The great Sir Andrew Bond was a hero to his Queen, having led a group of Naval ships into a battle they never even fought. The only real reason he was Knighted was because a great deal of his peers died. And then he and his wife died. It was the seventies, I believe, wasn't that what your record said? An unfortunate climbing accident."

Bond scowled. How could he know all of that? His files said nothing of his parents. Bond barely remembered them. How had Alec Trevelyan—a man who was supposed to be dead—learned all of this?

"What's the matter, James?" Trevelyan smiled. The scarred half of his face barely moved. Bond was almost sickened looking at him. "Have I delved too deeply?"

"Where's the helicopter?" Bond asked, trying to get back to the mission. It was terribly difficult. "And where's the GoldenEye?"

"What makes you think I have either?"

"Ourumov and Onatopp are both working for you."

"Indeed. The helicopter is near the rear exit of this statue graveyard. As for the GoldenEye, let's just say I have it in a very secure location."

"It's not even in Russia, is it?"

Trevelyan laughed again. "You're every bit as good as M said you were."

Bond smiled this time. "Glad to know I can please my elders, 006."


	9. Chapter 9

_**Chapter Nine: The Archives**_

Trevelyan was still standing there, still between his two guards. Bond also remained where he was, though his hand was moving back to his P99. He wanted to put a bullet straight through Trevelyan's twisted face. The whole time, Trevelyan was smiling.

"Please, James, don't try anything rash. These men have orders to shoot you if you try anything in my presence."

Bond lowered his arm to his side and changed tactics. "So, what do you plan to do with the GoldenEye, Alec?"

"Why would you like to know? Do you believe you have the power to stop me, James?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a radio. "Xenia, put the girl in the helicopter and set the self destruct."

Bond was confused. "What girl?"

"Natalya Simonova. The very woman you saw on your screens climbing out of the Severnaya facility." Trevelyan smiled again. "You didn't think I knew my little attack on the _La Fayette_ would draw your attention? I _wanted_ you to learn about my theft of the GoldenEye. I wanted M to send you. The infamous 007. Her Majesty's vicious bull dog."

"Why?"

"You left me quite the impression last year at Arkangelsk. You showed great skill at infiltration, assassination and even improvisation when you reset the timer on the bomb for two minutes instead of six. You gave me this face," he touched his multiple scars, "when you did so."

"What is this, then? You're pissed off at me for ruining your great beauty?"

Trevelyan frowned. His two guards raised their USAS12 automatic shotguns. "Don't test me, James. I'm not one to test."

"What's going to happen here, Trevelyan? Are you going to kill me? You going to kill her?"

"Her, maybe. You? I'll probably just string you along and kill you when I find it necessary."

"You know that if you kill me—"

"Yes, yes, 008 replaces you." He turned to his lead guard. "I'm going to take my leave. If he moves, kill him."

Trevelyan turned around and walked away. As if he were a specter, he disappeared into the fog. Bond turned to face the two guards who were standing there, holding their automatic shotguns at hip level, ready to fire them at Bond if he moved. He wasn't going to disappoint them. There were two statues directly to Bond's left. His plan was to jump behind them and draw the P99. Hopefully, the two guards would be surprised and miss him when they fired.

He made his move. The left guard was too into his cigarette to hoist the gun up and fire quickly enough. The right guard, however, took his shot. The statue behind Bond was vaporized by the 12-guage rounds that would have vaporized Bond himself. He landed on the ground behind his two safety statues and drew his P99. He poked the gun out and blind-fired at the two guards. One was hit, the other had gotten to Bond's position rather quickly. Bond grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against another statue. He was dazed quickly. It was a simple matter of one more bullet after that, and the man was dead.

The first guard had quit firing, and was slowly making his way to Bond's location. Bond took a knife off of the dead guard and waited for the first to make his appearance. When he did, Bond grabbed him by his tactical vest and quickly slipped the knife into his throat. The surprised guard slowly fell to the ground, choking for air.

Bond grabbed a shotgun off of one of them and ran the way Trevelyan had gone. When he finally got out of the fog, he saw the _Pirate_. Inside was a very plain looking woman, she was screaming something. "Just hold on!" Bond shouted. After that, everything went black.

Bond awoke in a daze. He was very disoriented for a few minutes, then he realized he was inside the _Pirate_. He saw that his hands were tied to the chair. He was in the weapons seat. He turned his head to look behind him and saw the woman was still sitting there. "Hello," he said. He turned back to the front and tried pulling his hands away from the chair. All he succeeded in was loosening the rope a little. "Listen, I'm a little tied up at the moment, would you mind lending a hand?"

"I'm tied up, too," she said, her thick Russian accent poking through.

"Damnit." He continued to try pulling his hands away from the chair. Whoever had tied him down must have known he'd wake up and try to escape.

_It was probably Trevelyan. _The thought was not a good one. Nor a reassuring one. Not even a mildly pleasant one. Whether Bond liked it or not, Alec Trevelyan was now the enemy.

"Listen, Mister... Mister British Man, the people who put you in here did something to the controls, but I couldn't see what they did."

Bond looked down at the control panel. Indeed, they had. Two missiles had been prepped, and were about to launch. "Well, that's not very good. Though for who it's not good for is in question."

"What is it?"

"Two missiles are about to be launched. Look, Natalya, is it?"

"How did you know my name?"

"I'll explain later—always assuming there _is_ a later—right now, I'm going to try and hit the eject button."

"Why?"

"If I'm reading this right, the target is this helicopter."

"Christ..."

Bond saw the eject button on to his right. He hoped he had enough head room to do what he needed to do. The count on the missile launch was at T-minus 00:08 and counting. He jerked his head hard right and hit just above the button. T-minus 00:02. The missiles launched. The count changed. Time to target was now 00:25. Bond tried a second time, this time after slightly loosening his hands further. He hit the button but it didn't depress. 00:21, now. He tried a third time—this time it worked!

The blades blew off first—at 00:15—after that, jets on the underside of the cockpit section blew, sending the cockpit itself flying into the air. At 00:06, the cockpit reached its furthest, and parachutes blew. The cockpit started its slow decent at 00:01. It landed off center from the wreckage of the helicopter, luckily for them.

Bond leaned his head back. "That was somewhat exhilirating, wasn't it?"

Natalya kicked his chair from behind. "Don't talk like that you stupid... testosterone driven... _stupid man!_"

"I'm just trying to relieve the tension, madame, and I just—" Bond looked to the side and saw the barrel of an AKS-74U pointed straight at him. In fact, there were several.

A group of Russian soldiers opened the cockpit and untied both Bond and Natalya. They were then shoved into a jeep. "Well, this is aggrivating," Natalya said, crossing her arms. "So, who are you?"

"I work for the SIS."

"British Secret Intelligence Service?"

"Yes."

"Out here in Russia?"

"I was tracking Janus."

"Janus?"

"Russian crime organization. That helicopter that nearly killed us was stolen."

"Oh. Now, how did you know my name?"

"The Janus head man, Alec Trevelyan, told me. He also told me that you were the one that climbed out of the Severnaya base using the satalite dish."

"Yes. That was me. I had no other way out."

"I understand how that feels. My name's Bond. James Bond."

"Natalya Fyodoronva Simonova. I worked at Severnaya."

"I figured that last bit out."

"What's going to happen to us?"

Bond sighed. "They'll probably take us to their commanding officer, he'll interrogate us and then we'll probably be shot."

Natalya gave him an odd look. "Has anyone told you that your head seems to be stuck in the Cold War, Mr. Bond?"

Bond smiled. "Call me James. And, yes, I have been called a relic before."

"By who?"

"No one recently."

Bond was ushered into a small room. Green and white dominated the floor and ceiling. There was a table in front of him. His P99 was sitting there. His and Natalya's capture had been so fast he didn't realize they'd taken his weapon. He walked around to the other side of the table—why put his gun in front of him like that?

His question was answered moments later, when two soldiers walked into the room. Their AK-74s slung over their shoulders. Finally, a third man walked into the room. He was a middle-aged man, roughly. Had a goatee. He was wearing what could be considered the traditional Russian hat in the West.

"Good morning, Mr. Bond," the man said as he sat down across from Bond at the table, "I am Defense Minister Dimitri Mishkin. Please, sit."

"I can take it you've already contacted my superiors?"

"Yes. They tell me that you're looking for Janus."

"And I found him. His name's Alec Trevelyan. An MI6 traitor."

"I see. Does Ms. Simonova have any information regarding the theft of the GoldenEye equipment?"

"I already know that Janus took it."

"I know that as well. I just want to know _who_."

"She might know."

"Well then, I believe our disccusion is over." Mishkin stood up. Bond asked him to stop. "You have more to say, Mr. Bond?"

"General Ourumov."

Mishkin turned completely toward Bond. "What about him?"

"He's a Janus man."

"You're certain of this?"

"Yes. So is a woman named Xenia Onatopp."

"I've not heard of her. General Ourumov, however... I'll have to look into this. You'll remain here until we've questioned the girl. Afterwards, I'll determine if you're to be set free."

Mishkin turned towards the door again, only to find it open. General Ourumov was standing there, a look of complete surprise on his face. "Defense Minister? What is the meaning of this?"

" Of this? Arkaday Grigorovich, from what I'm hearing, I need to be questioning _you_."

"_Me_ ? Defense Minister, I've been nothing but loyal to you!"

"And yet I have news that you work for that bastard Janus?"

Ourumov looked utterly surprised. "Where have you learned this? That British _spy_ back there? A year ago, I caught this man and his friend planting explosives at our Arkangelsk facility!"

"You were working with Trevelyan the whole time, Ourumov," Bond piped in, "don't even pretend that you weren't."

Ourumov couldn't take it anymore. Bond quickly grabbed his weapon, then ducked behind the table as Ourumov pulled his own weapon from its holster. The two guards and Mishkin were lying on the floor now, a single bullet hole in each of their heads. Bond grabbed the table and ran towards Ourumov, pushing him out the door and into the hallway. A single shot came out of the Makarov, but it went wide. Bond tossed the table away and prepared to shoot Ourumov, but he was gone, running down the hall.

_I'll kill you later._

He had to get to Natalya. He ran through the door opposite the room he was in. The room appeared to be a storeroom of some kind. Metal and wood boxes were everywhere. There was another door at the end of room. Bond ran for it, hit it with his shoulder and came out just as two men were about to open it. They were knocked unconsious by the force of the door hitting them. He took advantage of this and ran for the stairs.

The next door led into what appeared to be a library. Bond looked around. The library was two floors. He was on the second.

"Quickly!" a familiar voice shouted. Bond looked over the railing to the first floor, where Ourumov and two other men were dragging Natalya out of the building. "Move!"

Bond tried for a shot, but his angle was wrong. The tall bookcases obstructed his view. He had to come up with a plan quickly. That was when he remembered his belt. Boothroyd had said that it would only support his weight. He quickly undid it and fired the small hook at the ceiling. After that, he jumped over the rail and slowly fell to the floor, by aid of the rappelling cord in the belt.

When Bond hit the floor, he quickly ducked behind a bookcase. The other side was quickly pelted with 5.56mm bullets. He drew his P99 and waited for the stream to stop. When it did, he pulled around and popped off two shots. The gunman crumpled to the floor. Ourumov shouted for the other one to forget Bond and come along. Bond took advantage and ran for the closest door. He found himself outside.

"_James!_" Natalya shouted from out front. She was cut short by the sound of a car speeding away. Bond looked around for a vehicle of some sort. He didn't see a car, but he did find a suitable replacement.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Chapter Ten: Romp Through the Streets**_

Natalya looked out the back window and saw nothing but casual St. Petersburg traffic. Nothing more, nothing less. Ourumov was drinking furiously from his flask. She asked him, "What do you plan to do with me? What do you want me for? You kidnapped me the first time to stick me in a helicopter and blow me up, what the hell could you need me for now?"

"_To take from Bond that which he wants, desperately," _came a voice from somewhere. Natalya looked around and saw Ourumov was holding a small walkie-talkie. _"And, at the moment, that just happens to be you."_

"Who is that?"

"_My name is Alec Trevelyan, my sweet. And believe me, you don't want James Bond to try and help you. Do you know how many women he's lost?"_

Natalya scowled at the small device.

"That's enough of that," Ourumov said, shutting off the radio. "Now, Ms. Simonova, we're about to get on a train, Mr. Trevelyan's train. He's awaiting us there. After that, well, who knows where we'll go?" Ourumov smiled.

His happiness was cut short when an explosion went off somewhere behind them. Natalya looked out the back window again, and was shocked when she saw a tank bursting out onto the streets of St. Petersburg. Two cars were crushed almost instantly as the large vehicle drove over them.

"What the hell is that?" Ourumov hurridly asked.

"Bond," Natalya answered.

Bond was quite familiar with the inner workings of the T72. Once he got it started up and out onto the street, it was as if he was driving his Aston Martin.

Ourumov's car was instantly discovered. He must have told his driver to hurry upon seeing the tank. Bond floored the tank and nearly hit a couple of people who were jaywalking. They ran the opposite way and hugged the nearest building.

A group of soldiers ran out from a building that Ourumov had passed. They began firing their AKs at Bond's tank as soon as they were all set up. Bond aimed the T72's main cannon at the overpass above soldiers. A single shell later and the group was under a lot of cover. Rock hard cover.

Bond drove over the rubble he'd created and continued on. Ourumov was still taking a rather straight path so far. He was, however, turning as Bond got within a block or two of him. Bond pulled a very hard left and hit a statue that had been erected to honor Russia's newest leader.

Ourumov's car was now a good deal ahead of him. He floored it again and almost ran into a school bus before pulling off to the side and hitting another statue. Another turn by Ourumov, another near miss. This time, Bond nearly ran over an old woman in her VW.

"What I wouldn't give for my bloody Aston Martin!" Bond shouted. He _was_ starting to miss that car.

Natalya kept watching as the tank drew closer and closer. It almost looked as though Bond was going to run them over. Suddenly, the car jerked to the left, sending her hard into Ourumov. He pushed her against the door and held his gun at her face.

"Don't you touch me again, whore," he said, cooly. She kept to her side of the seat.

Natalya looked outside and saw Bond continued to move the tank closer. "He's going to kill you, y'know," she said to Ourumov. He turned and looked out back. "He's going to put a bullet in your head, General."

"He'll never get me. I have Janus' protection."

"I don't think _he'll_ help you much."

Ourumov took another drink from his flask. He then tapped his driver on the shoulder. "If you don't hurry up, you'll be dead, dumbass—move the _car_!"

Bond swerved the tank to the left, hitting the most outside pillar holding up a balcony. That section of the balcony fell to the ground, taking six or seven people with it. He didn't like harming these people, who were obviously just innocent bystanders, but he had to stop Ourumov from getting to Trevelyan, and to do that, he had to hurry up.

The tank was heating up quickly. He was going to have to dump it soon. As he rounded another corner, he found Ourumov's car stopped. He hopped out of the tank, ran over to the vehicle. It was empty. He spotted a very nervous citizen on the corner. "Did you see a man and a woman get out of this car?" he asked the man, in Russian.

"Yes, they went to the army's supply depot." He pointed toward a halfway open fence gate. "The man was dragging the woman along."

Bond turned and ran through the gate into the supply depot. Several crates, containers and boxes of all shapes, sizes and materials were stacked up everywhere. Bond drew his P99 and walked around, very cautiously. Every so often a shadow seemed to move. The place was supernaturally quiet, only the hustle and bustle of the streets outside the gate provided background noise. A group of police were probably already inspecting the T72 Bond had left at the gate.

A garage door opened to the hangar to Bond's left. Two Janus guards opened fire on him with FN P90 submachineguns. Bond ducked behind a crate, then blind-fired at them. His shots went wide. After a few seconds, he jumped out and hit one of the two guards as he landed on the ground. The second ducked behind the closing garage door. Bond stood up and walked over to the door. He lifted it up and slid underneath. The second Janus man was nowhere to be seen.

Bond slowly walked around the place. More crates were stacked up here. However, only half of the building had crates in it. The other half was some kind of armory. Guns were lying on tables, sitting in cabinets or even just laying on the floor. Two tables were completely covered in RPG-7 launchers.

The bullets came from the other side of the crate Bond was sliding along. He ducked back before any metal hit him, but caught one in the shoulder before he got away. The pain was severe, but managable. He'd been through worse. Dominic Greene hadn't exactly been soft on him that day in the Greene Hotel. Then there was Mr. White himself, who had nearly taken off Bond's leg with a circular saw. Bond pulled around the crate and fired, hitting the Janus guard directly in the middle of his forehead. The P90 clattered to the floor.

Bond left the building and continued on his path. He was a bit surprised that he didn't hear any police around the place. He figured that Ourumov or some other military official in Trevelyan's employ were probably handling the situation. Janus _was_ a wanted criminal organization. If they were discovered using a Russian military supply depot, heads would roll on the floor.

A train whistle blew. Bond ran towards the sound. True to Zukovsky's words, a Soviet missile train was getting ready to leave. Several Janus henchmen were packing wooden boxes and metal crates into the many rear storage compartments. Bond carefully snuck up to one of the henchmen and grabbed him, covering his mouth and applying pressure. He was down in seconds, and then Bond hopped onto the train and closed the cargo door.

In Russia, the conductor said, _"Prepare to depart. We'll be at our destination in seven hours."_

Bond checked his wound. The bleeding had stopped, but it still wasn't good. He ripped a part of his suit lining off and wrapped it around his shoulder. That would help for a while, but that was all. When finished putting his suit back on, the train lurched forward.

Bond kept low, along the boxes, and made his way toward the front of the car. Two guards were smoking cigarettes and talking about their weekend plans. Bond reached into his pocket and pulled out the sound supressor for his P99. He screwed it on and shot both men. They dropped their cigarettes to the floor and slumped forward, onto each other. It'd almost be touching if they weren't corpses.

The next car held exactly the same thing: dozens of boxes and crates and two Janus guards. Bond took out the guards, then cracked open one of the boxes. Inside was a smaller aluminum case. Inside that was a group of five P90s, along with ammunition. Bond took a P90 and five magazines.

Bond continued into the next car. This one was a luxury cabin, for passengers. He had a hard time believing that a missile train would have such accomodations, but Trevelyan had probably outfitted it to his specifications. The cabins seemed empty at the moment, but he almost figured someone was hiding in one. He aimed the P90 at the bottom of the doors and sprayed bullets across the room at every cabin door. Nothing happened, which Bond took to be a good sign, so he went on.

Another luxury cabin came after the first. This one also empty. After that came a cabin with a restroom, but no one was occupying it at the moment. The next car held nothing but conference table—with four Janus guards around it. Before any of them had the time to react, Bond raised the P90 and emptied the first magazine into them. Two more guards ran in from the small room on the other side. Bond quickly drew his P99 and put a bullet into each of their skulls. He then took the quick respite from guards to reload both of his weapons.

The next room in the car was exactly the same, only there was a couch. No one resided there, so Bond continued forth. The next room was just a cabin with a toilet again. After that came a very spartan car. The whole thing looked to be made of aluminum foil and foam padding. He saw a small box on the wall to his right. It had **EMERGENCY STOP** written on it in Russian. He opened the box and pulled the switch.

Natalya felt the train stop, just as the other three people in the room had. Trevelyan, Ourumov and the woman known as Xenia Onatopp. Onatopp was near the door to the next car. Trevelyan was sitting at a table, having just finished his meal, and Ourumov was still holding onto her, her arm in one hand and his gun in the other. The train stopping probably meant one thing and one thing only.

James Bond was on the train.

"Xenia, go prep the helicopter," Trevelyan said to the horrid woman. "Ourumov, keep your weapon trained on the girl."

"What is going on?" Ourumov asked, hurridly.

"It's Bond, you moron!" He pulled out his radio. "Conductor, what's the status on the train?"

"_Emergency stop has been pulled. We've got a five minute wait until we can go again."_

"Damn it... If only you goddamn Russians could build anything with an active failsafe."

Trevelyan walked over to Natalya and rubbed her chin. "Don't worry, my dear, we'll be out of here soon enough."

"I'm not worried about me, Trevelyan. I'm worried about _you_."

He smiled. "Not something you need to be worried about, either."

Bond entered the room where Trevelyan, Ourumov and Natalya were. Ourumov was holding Natalya at gunpoint. Trevelyan had his weapon drawn as well—the same Sig Sauer he'd used during the Arkangelsk mission, Bond noted—and Xenia was nowhere to be seen. He'd heard Trevelyan talking to her, but she was gone.

"Hello, James," Trevelyan said after a few moments.

"Alec."

"I see our situation is grave. We're on a stopped train, no doubt caused by you, I have the woman you came here for in my possession and General Ourumov here has a gun to her head. Ms. Onatopp is currently prepping my helicopter. If you just let us leave, you'll find a way to get Ms. Simonova back."

"Do you think I'd really believe you, Alec? I'm sure the entire train is wired to explode once that helicopter leaves the pad."

Trevelyan smiled. "You are indeed the resourceful one that M said you were. When she recruited me, it was almost a challenge to earn her respect. You, however... well, you broke the limit."

Bond walked closer. "Let her go, and I'll consider shooting you in the leg instead of the head, Ourumov." He pointed the P90 at Ourumov's head.

"Bastard!" Ourumov shouted, then pointed his Makarov at Bond. It took Bond that split second to squeeze the trigger and send the 5.7mm round into Ourumov's skull. He dropped to the floor, pulling Natalya down with him. Trevelyan raised his Sig Sauer and squeezed off one round, which hit Bond's front sight and knocked off his own shot. The window between them gained a single hole in it. When Bond got the weapon trained back on Trevelyan, he was gone.

"_Good work, James. I've left you a little parting gift. You were correct about the train being wired to blow. I've set the timers for six minutes. The same six minutes I got last year. Have fun, James."_

Natalya looked at Bond. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"We've got two minutes before we're a crater in the ground."

Bond set to work with his laser watch on a floor panel. As he did, Natalya quickly set to work on a computer workstation next to Bond.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm looking for Boris."

"Who?"

"Boris Grishenko, he's a... a co-worker."

Natalya quickly sent a spike through Boris' IP address. "I'm tracking him."

"Why's he important?" Bond was nearly done with the floor. One minute was left.

"He's the only other person on the planet who knows how GoldenEye works." The screen beeped, and a small facility in Cuba appeared on a worldwide map. "Got him! He's in Cuba!"

"Good," Bond said as he knocked the floor panel out. "Now let's get the hell out of here!" He grabbed Natalya by the arm and pulled her to him. They both jumped down to the ground and rolled out from under the train. Thirty seconds left. Bond pushed Natalya along as they ran for cover.

The explosion was quite loud. Bond had never heard anything as loud as a Soviet Missile train exploding right beside him. When the smoke cleared, he and Natalya got out from under the tree they were hiding under.

"That was pretty loud," Natalya said, adjusting her blouse.

"In my line of work, I'm sure they just get louder."

"Even Severnya facility wasn't that loud."

Bond held his hand over his eyes to block out the sunlight. "Well, we're out here in the middle of Russia without any kind of transportation. What do we do know?"

Bond's question was answered seconds later by the arrival of a helicopter. In a defensive response, Bond raised the P90 at the chopper and waited. Suddenly, a familiar voice came over the speaker. _"James!"_ Valentin Zukovsky's loud voice shouted out. _"We've come to rescue you from the dangerous Janus!"_

Bond smiled. Natalya looked confused. "Does this man truly know you?"

"We're casual aquaintences. C'mon, when he lands I need him to give us a ride back to London."

"I'm not getting in that helicopter with you."

Bond was now confused. "What?"

"Every time I've been in a vehicle and you've been involved, there have been explosions. First was that helicopter, then half of St. Petersburg is probably under martial law because of you, then came this train. I'm starting to think you're bad vehicle luck."

Bond smiled again. "Good. I don't have to tell you about the other times."


	11. Chapter 11

_**Chapter Eleven: Mission Redirect**_

Dr. Molly Warmflash was MI6's resident doctor. She was quite good at cleaning wounds and retrieving bullets from them. Bond winced in pain as she retrieved the bullet from his shoulder. M was out in the hallway, watching through the window.

"And Trevelyan escaped?" she asked.

"Yes."

"But you have a lead on his whereabouts?"

"Natalya says Cuba. But we didn't have much time to find the exact location. They could be anywhere."

"According to Ms. Simonova, he needs a radar dish the size of an American football field."

"Then it'll be very difficult to conceal."

"There," Dr. Warmflash said after finishing up the stitching. "Would you like the bullet as a souvenir?"

"No."

"Bond," M's voice had gone soft, "don't go chasing after Trevelyan on some kind of..."

"Personal vendetta? You gave me the same instructions with Ourumov."

"I mean it this time, James. Ourumov just happened to lead us in the right direction. If you let your anger at Trevelyan get the better of you, you won't last long against him."

Bond stood up and walked over to the window separating him and M. "You recruited him. Why?"

"I was a young girl during the War. I learnt of things I didn't want to know. When I found out about Trevelyan's family history, I felt I needed to do something to pay him back. Britain wasn't good to the Cossacks. Maybe if things had happened differenlty in 1945, we wouldn't be in this situation now. But I can't change that. I thought that letting Trevelyan into MI6 would heal the rift between Britain and the Cossacks."

"I see. If I were in your situation, I might have done the same. Ma'am, I need to stop him. Vendetta or not, Alec Trevelyan needs to die."

M nodded. "I'll contact the CIA. These days, clandestine operations into Cuba go directly through them."

"Let me know how it turns out."

Bond returned to his flat that night and saw that Natalya was going through his mail. "If you're looking for anything of great importance, I have all of that sent straight to my office at Regent's Park."

She smiled. "No. Just some kind of indication that anything but a highly trained killer lives here."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you."

"That's all right." She sat down in one of the chairs that adorned the living room. Bond sat down in another. "Some woman named Caroline called. She was very disappointed when you didn't call her back yesterday."

Bond smiled. "She was my therapist for a short time."

"Therapist? What could you need therapy for? You kill people for a living."

"A fellow agent died in a mission last year."

"A friend?"

"He could have been. Our time was just too short."

"You're talking about Trevelyan, aren't you?"

"Yes."

Natalya sighed. Bond stood up and walked over to his bar. He needed a drink. He fixed himself a vodka martini and took a quick swig. After that, he returned to his chair. "Does that make it easier?" she asked.

"Sometimes."

"Is it because of Trevelyan, or her?"

"Her?"

"I found a few photos of a woman in the other room. I'm sorry if you didn't want me to see them."

"That's all right." He took another drink. "Her name was Vesper. She was..."

"Was?"

"She died. Three years ago."

"Did you love her?"

Bond didn't answer for a long time. After a while, he said, "I'm not sure."

Natalya just nodded. "I understand how that feels."

"You do?"

"It was a long time ago, before I went to Severnaya."

"How did it turn out?"

"It really didn't."

Bond nodded. He smiled again.

Bond received a call from M at five-fifty in the morning. He left Natalya in the bed and dressed quickly. He took the DBS back to Regent's Park and took the lift up to the sixth floor. Moneypenny just smiled and waved him into M's office. When he arrived, Bond was more surprised at who he saw standing next to M than he had been when Zukovsky had shown up outside the train.

Felix Leiter smiled. Bond reached out to shake hands and said, "Felix, how nice to see you."

The big man shook Bond's hand and then waited for Bond to sit down before he began. "Nice to see you, too, James. I trust Wade was a little too American for you?"

"You could say that."

"I see. He'll see you in Cuba. He's pulling some strings down there to get you a plane."

"Nice of him."

"Yeah. Listen, James, this dish your looking for? I think we found it."

"Where?"

Felix walked over to the large pane of glass in the room. He touched a few buttons and a large lake in the middle of Cuba appeared. "Right here. The Cubanos down there think the place is cursed. Nobody comes back alive."

M spoke up. "It's likely Trevelyan has had a setup there for some time."

"At least three years," Felix explained, "these myths have been going around for about that long."

"Three bloody years and we didn't know?" M exclaimed.

"He was very careful," Bond answered. "He knew that MI6 would have everything he did monitored. He had Ourumov do most of it. Set everything up exactly as they had Severnaya. When that was finished, he needed to disappear to oversee the final stages himself."

"So he had himself killed. Ourumov arranged to be at Arkangelsk, he used blanks."

"Trevelyan had Doak set up as a double agent so that any suspicion about the mission being leaked would go to him."

"Well," Felix gasped out, "sounds like you folks have everything figured out."

"Don't worry, Felix," Bond said, standing up, "we'll always need you."

"Much appreciated, brother."

When they arrived in Jamaica, Bond waited six more hours before his other package arrived. When the crate finally came, via air frieght, Bond signed for it and waited for the people required to do the job to open it up. Natalya asked three or four times what could possibly be so important that Bond have it shipped there.

The Aston Martin DB5, 1964 American variant, rolled out of the cargo crate and onto the concrete.

"This is it?"

"We'll need transportation to my little cottage in the hills."

"So you had a car shipped here?"

"We still have an entire day before Wade gets here. Hopefully Trevelyan isn't ready to go all the way with his plan."

"He shouldn't be. It took us ten years to get Ivan and Viktor ready to uplink to Severnaya. Assuming he just used the data we collected, it would still take him some time before Viktor will even accept the firing codes from his antenna."

"I hope you're right about that."

The drive through the countryside of Jamaica was a beautiful experience. Bond had made this trip dozens of times over the last five years, but making it with Natalya made it all the better, for some reason. Bond liked her company. He hadn't felt this way with a woman since Vesper. He'd had his share of intimate conquests in the three years since her death, but none had felt anything like Natalya.

When they pulled up to Bond's Jamaican estate, Natalya had first checked everything out. Over the past few days, Bond had learned a great deal of things about her. The trip to London had been her first time leaving Russia. Before Severnaya, she was just out of almost ten years of schooling in computers and programming. She had few places to go, and the prospect of saving her country from any and all threats by creating satalite weaponry was very appealling. No bullets would have to be fired, no people would have to die. That was her dream.

Shame the reality was so fare off the mark.

As they sat on the balcony watching the sunset, she asked him a question in a soft voice: "Why do you do it, James?" She looked him straight in the eyes. The sight of her, looking so serious while the wind blew through her hair—it almost took Bond's breath away. "Why do you kill people? Why?"

Bond took a while to answer her question, though it wasn't just her question. He'd been asking himself the same thing since entering the Service. Why _did_ he want to do it? "I don't know, Natalya. It just seems to be the only thing I'm good at."

"We both know that's not the case."

"Natalya... why did you get into computers in the first place?"

It was her turn to take a while. Finally, she came up with: "I chose my path because it was the exact opposite of what I was when I was growing up. I fumbled with the most basic of things, broke things often. I was the biggest klutz in Leningrad. Now, I've turned myself around. At Severnaya, I was in charge of programming GoldenEye's guidance system. My friend, Anna, and I wrote every line of code ourselves. Twenty years ago, I wouldn't have been able change a lightbulb without dropping two or three of them."

Bond put his hand through her hair. "I'm just the opposite of you. I chose my path because it was what I _was_. What I _am_. I've never been able to sit around and let others take care of the problems I see. I felt the need... a selfish need... to do it all myself."

" Is this why you're so... _cold_?"

"It keeps me alive, Natalya."

" It also keeps you _alone_."

The place Wade was meeting them with the plane was an abandoned airstrip, slightly south of Bond's home. No one had used it the entire time Bond had owned his house. The only time he'd even seen people near the strip was when Felix had dropped by for a drink.

"Where the hell's Wade?" Bond asked aloud. He wasn't talking directly to Natalya, but she could answer if she chose.

She chose not to. Their little talk the night before hadn't been a very good one. Bond understood why. He wasn't one who could reassure people that well, especially women.

Natalya leaned her head outside the window for a moment, then screamed and pulled back inside. Bond stopped the car just as the plane passed overhead. It came in for a very bumpy landing at the end of the strip, then doubled back.

"God! Why is it whenever I get in a vehicle nowadays, I'm almost guarenteed to lose something?" Natalya shouted.

"No offense, but be glad it's not your life."

Bond and Natalya got out of the car and walked toward Wade, who was getting out of the plane at that very moment. "Yo, Jimbo!" he shouted.

"Nice to see you again, Wade."

"Brought you some toys. Came from that feller you got in your basement, uh, Major T, or Z or somethin' like that."

"Just call him Q, Wade. What have you got?"

Wade reached into the bag he was holding and pulled out each item. "Well, we have a few remote mines, a new Walther, 'cause he says you lost the last one." For a moment, Bond was confused, until he remembered that his P99 had gone missing sometime between the destruction of the train and ending up back at MI6 headquarters. "And, let's see, looks like, well, is this a real pen?" Wade held up the device. Bond quickly snatched it away from him and put it in his pocket.

"Let's just say, you wouldn't like to run out of ink."

"Well. Ya'll are cleared on CIA's radar today at sixteen hundred. NSA's satalites are out of Cuban rotation then, and the Russian's just lost all contact with theirs."

"What?"

"Looks like your buddy Trevelyan's gonna do as much damage as possible with his EMP satalite. We still can't figure out what his target is."

"I doubt it's anywhere in Russia," Natalya said. "If any Russian ground-based defenses feel a GoldenEye looking at them, they'll issue a detonation code immediately."

"Detonation code?" Wade asked.

"It's a failsafe designed to make sure the GoldenEye isn't used against Russian military sites."

"Shouldn't that have saved Severnaya?" Bond asked.

"It interferred with the transmission dish. That had to transmit a specific frequency in order for the GoldenEye to work."

"So, the target isn't Russia. What else could it be?" Wade asked.

"I have a feeling I know what it is," Bond answered. "London."


	12. Chapter 12

_**Chapter Twelve: In the Jungle**_

Bond felt it ironic that the plane Wade had given him and Natalya was almost the same type of plane as that he'd escaped the Arkangelsk facility a year ago. The words on the console were in English instead of Russian, that was the only real difference.

"Drop down below five hundred feet, that way we should be out of their radar," Natalya said, looking over the paper work that had been in Wade's care package.

"Yes sir," Bond said, smiling. Natalya laughed.

The radio chirped. _"Yo, Jimbo!"_ Wade's voice nearly shouted. _"Got some good news for you. We've got the go-ahead to send in some Marines in case you need backup."_

"That's great, Wade. We shouldn't need them, though."

"_Felix said that'd be your answer. Call on frequency eight if you need us."_

"Thanks, Wade." Bond shut off the radio. If Trevelyan had even a hint that Bond was in the area, there'd be trouble.

"James, do you think they'll have soldiers outside?" Natalya asked.

"More than likely. It's doubtful that he'd leave his super base unguarded. Especially with those rumors of the place being cursed."

They made a pass around the lake that Felix indicated could possibly be the dish. The exact depth of the lake could not easily be determined from the five hundred feet they were up. "Do you see it?" Bond asked Natalya.

"No. But this is the only area that even makes sense."

"There's probably something we're not seeing."

Boris couldn't believe he was sitting there, setting up Viktor for some British madman to use against his own country. But he was there. He was there and he was getting paid. Boris had never before thought himself a very greedy man, but being tortured by your direct superior, his whorish girlfriend and a horde of Janus henchmen was something that would change your perspective on life.

Trevelyan and Onatopp were both standing nearby, silently. That made Boris shudder. Nothing was creepier than your new bosses just standing there, silently watching not only you, but every other computer technician in their secret base.

"Viktor is coming into range. He'll be over London in thirty-eight minutes," Boris announced to Trevelyan.

"Good," Trevelyan said, walking over to him. "I want to know the sec—" Something on a monitor cut him off. Boris looked up and saw a plane on the outdoor security cameras. Trevelyan turned to Xenia. "Shoot it down. Take care of the survivors yourself."

Xenia did nothing but nod.

Bond had just turned the plane around when the missile came from nowhere. Natalya screamed, as the plane shook and fell. The tail was completely gone. Bond was determined, however, to make as safe a landing as possible. He jerked back on the stick six, seven, eight times. On the ninth time, the nose came up somewhat. The tenth time, the nose came up more. The eleventh time, however, never happened, as the plane hit a very large tree. The left wing was cut off, sending the plane spinning into the forest.

The last thing Bond saw before he blacked out was an attack helicopter.

Bond awoke, for the second time in the past week, in a daze. After regaining a semblence of consciousness, he stood up and drew his P99. The attack helicopter he'd seen before blacking out would probably be close, and it would probably have at least two armed soldiers on it.

Natalya crawled out of the plane a few moments later. She had blood trailing down her face, but otherwise seemed fine. Bond did a check of himself and came away with something lodged in the same shoulder he'd recent had a bullet taken out of.

_That's not even funny, _he thought. He pulled the object out and discovered it was just a piece of the wall of the plane. His shoulder hurt, after the foreign object was removed.

"Where are we?" Natalya asked.

"Looks like we're only a mile or so away from that lake." He reached into the plane and retrieved another P99. He handed it to Natalya. "Can you use one of these?"

She looked at it like it was vicious animal that Bond was holding out for her to heal. "Why?"

"Because, we're probably going to have some company out here in the next few moments. I need to know that you can protect yourself."

She reluctantly took the weapon. "I got into the GoldenEye program to avoid this kind of stuff," she said, all the while looking at the weapon.

"No one on the right side of things likes to kill, Natalya. Me included."

She nodded, then looked up at him. "I understand, James. I just can't get my head around it, is all."

He nodded, this time. Bond checked his own weapon and ran Natalya through the motions of checking hers. When they were both ready, they started on through the jungle. For about ten minutes, they were quite alone. Eventually, they came to a small clearing. When Bond got a good look at an object in the center of that clearing, he pushed Natalya out of the way and dropped to the ground. There was a drone gatling gun setup in the middle of the clearing. After it stopped firing, a group of soldiers came out from behind trees and the like and began firing off their own weapons.

Bond stood up and took out one of the soldiers with a bullet to the neck. He spray-fired as he ran toward a tree for cover. Two more soldiers went down, a heart and face shot, respectively. Natalya was also returning fire, but her shots weren't as accurate. Two soldiers went down due to leg or torso shots, but they got back up for Bond to do a head shot.

After a minute or two, the soldiers were all dead. Bond checked each of the bodies for ammunition. None for the P99, but he found a .45-caliber HK USP in one soldier's holster. He took it and stuffed it into his belt. Then he took the soldier's M4 carbine.

Bond and Natalya continued on, coming to a very narrow rope bridge, crossing a narrow area. Bond raised the M4—something seemed wrong.

"I'll cross first," he told Natalya, "you come after I give you the all clear."

Just as Bond was about to cross, the bridge exploded. Bond jumped back to avoid getting hit by the pieces of wood and rock coming at him. He stood up and raised the M4. A figure dropped down on the other side. The figure was lean, somewhat feminine, with a long ponytail. In one hand, the figure held an FN P90; and in the other, a Croatian RGB6 grenade launcher.

The figure was Xenia Onatopp.

"This time, Mr. Bond, the pleasure will be all mine," she said, raising the P90. Bond hustled and grabbed Natalya, almost throwing her behind the cover of a tree, while he himself got behind it.

Xenia grunted in anger. Bond came out from behind the tree and took a quick shot off at her. The bullet didn't penetrate her vest, it must have been bulletproof. Xenia raised the grenade launcher and fired, hitting the tree. It blew off the top of the tree, causing Bond and Natalya to relocate. Natalya was firing away with her weapon the whole time. Most of the weapons fire hit Xenia in the torso, covered by the bulletproof vest. One of Natalya's shots, however, hit her leg.

"Is that the best you can do, whore!" Xenia shouted.

Bond and Natalya took refuge behind another tree, which Xenia shot up with her P90. Bond peeked out and tried to aim for her head when he saw a rope coming from her backpack. He looked up and saw a stealth helicopter hovering overhead. The rope travelled between Xenia and the helicopter and passed between two trees. Bond instead took aim for the helicopter. He flipped the swtich to full-auto and began to fire. Luckily, the glass of the helicopter was not bulletproof. The pilot swung the chopper away from Xenia, pulling her along and onto the two trees. The backpack—hanging by her neck—began to choke her to death. Within seconds, she was dead.

Bond shook his head. "She always did enjoy a good squeeze."

"Xenia, report!" Trevelyan shouted into the radio. There had been no response for the past five minutes. "Damnit!" He threw the radio at the wall. It shattered into pieces. "Grishenko!" He turned to Boris. "What's the status on the satalite?"

"Twenty minutes until it comes into range."

"Activate it."

"But..."

"It'll fire as soon as it comes into position, correct?"

"Yes, but..."

"Then _activate it_. Set the cradle up."

Bond and Natalya reached a cave not far from where Xenia's chopper had gone down. As soon as they got there, a very loud noise eminated from somewhere near the lake. Bond came out of the cave and looked that way. A very large metal structure was rising from the lake. The lake itself was draining. In its place was a satalite dish an American football field long.

"There it is," Bond said. "Under the water."

Trevelyan was watching another monitor. This one showed the elevator that led down to the control center. Natalya and some man in light jungle gear were using it.

"Have you found Xenia yet?" Trevelyan asked whoever was listening.

"_Yes sir. She's dead," _a voice answered. Boris silently cheered.

"Grishenko, what's the status?"

Boris looked at his console. "Antenna activated. Water's all drained. Viktor is receiving target coordinates. Sixteen minutes, forty-seven seconds until it can fire."

"Good. God Save the Queen."

A/N: Thank you Ash, for giving me my first review AFTER THE STORY'S BEEN UP FOR A FRIGGIN' MONTH! I mean it, too, I'm really grateful. I don't see why the hell nobody _else_ has given me one yet. Other, shorter fanfics have gotten a damn review, but mine just keeps gettin' passed up.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Chapter Thirteen: Control Problems**_

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to a very empty, unfinished room. Bond held the M4 ready and walked out into the room. No one came running or shooting. None of the other doors were open. He waved for Natalya to follow.

"Can you get any of these doors open?" he asked.

"If there's a computer console around here, I can do anything with it."

Bond nodded, then walked around, looking for a console. He found one next to one of the closed doors. "Got one for you," he said. She came around and started typing away.

"Here, I can open that door for you," she pointed to the one on the far side of the room, "but it looks like there's a bunch of soldiers behind it."

Bond nodded. "Open it and then close and lock it after I'm through. I'll find another door for you."

"Okay. This one," she pointed to the door next to her, "opens up into the main room of the base. There is another door just past it. If you can open that door from the control room, this door will unlock."

"And you can stop the GoldenEye, right?"

"If not, I can do something to make it stop. A big help would be if you could destroy the mainframes. They'll delay the GoldenEye long enough for me to do a workaround and either shut it off or destroy it."

Bond reached into his backpack and pulled out the remote mines Q had sent along with Wade. "Will these do?"

"Yes. These things are most likely bulletproof, if this place works like Severnaya, but those will destroy them."

Bond replaced the remote mines back in his backpack and ran over to the door. He waited for Natalya to open it, then peeked around. No one appeared right away. Eventually, a group of soldiers came into view. Bond blind-fired around the corner and hit two or three of them. Another opened fire, but Bond had pulled his arm back around the corner. When the gunfire stopped, Bond pulled around and shot two more soldiers.

He moved into the room. The door lowered again and locked behind him. He was stuck in with them, now. He walked toward the end of the corridor and found a room full of metal crates. No one around. He cautiously moved forward, turned a corner and found a very large engine. It was probably for the water. Bond briefly wondered where all of that water went.

He took a flight of stairs up to a doorway. It opened to a stair hallway. There were two soldiers standing guard at the bottom. Before they could raise their weapons, Bond fired his own. The left soldier got a heart shot, the right got a neck. Both went down instantly, and Bond continued on his way. The door at the bottom of the stairs let out into a room full of glass. Two mainframes were located directly in front of him. No soldiers ran up, none were stationed around the mainframes. They were completely unguarded.

_Something doesn't seem right, _Bond thought as he pulled out his remote mines. He set one on each mainframe. After placing the mines, he climbed the stairs and looked around for another door. After finding it, he looked down at the main floor. Rows and rows of computer terminals lined the floor. The entire room was disturbingly empty.

Bond opened the door, which led to an unfinished corridor which contained another door. This other door opened, Bond raised his weapon, and Natalya raised hers. "I told you what this door was," she said, after both had lowered their weapons.

"I've been told I'm quite paranoid."

Bond led Natalya to the computer terminals on the main floors. She set to work on one of them.

"The target is... London," she said.

"Can you stop it?"

"I'm not sure... This is Boris' programming. He was the best programmer on the team. He designed the GoldenEye firing system."

"Can you stop it?" Bond repeated.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

Bond heard footsteps. People were running. He looked up on the second floor and saw six or seven soldiers running to the two stairways that led down to the ground.

"We may not have much time." Bond raised his M4 and started firing at the soldiers. Three went down, but were replaced by three more. He shifted sides and took out more, but those were quickly replaced. "Can you do anything, even if you can't stop it?"

She shushed him quickly. "I'm working on it."

Bond shook his head. He returned to the shooting gallery. He shot one of them in the face, causing him to pull the trigger in a reflex action. It hit a gas tank. Gas started to leak down the side of the wall. Bond pulled the gun around to the left—

—and saw Trevelyan standing there, holding his weapon at Bond. "Step away from the computer, Ms. Simonova," he said, "or I'll kill Mr. Bond."

Natalya stepped away from the computer and held her hands up. Bond continued holding his own M4 at Trevelyan. "We're not going to let you hit London with that thing," Bond threatened.

"I've already done what I need to do, James. Viktor will fire as soon as it comes into range. Completely automatic. Russian technology, isn't it a wonder?"

Bond watched as a technician wearing a Hawaiian shirt walked up and started working on the computer. Natalya seemed surprised. "Boris? You're working for _him_?"

"Don't think I'm stupid, Natalya, I just want some compensation for being punched and beaten to death for three days. Do you understand what I had to do just to _live_?"

"You gave me to them." She slapped him across the face, rather hard. Bond just smiled.

"Enough of this! Grishenko, what did she do?"

Boris stood up. "Nothing I can see. It doesn't matter anyway. She can't do anything to Viktor. She worked on the guidance system, nothing more."

Bond looked over at Natalya, who smiled.

It was taken care of.

He turned back to Trevelyan, who was also smiling. "Good. Please, James, put the gun down."

"I think I'll just stay here."

"James... You forget that I know everything your file said. I saw how you wanted to protect Ms. Simonva here. Could that be because of Vesper? Or Solange Dimitrios? Camille Montes? Strawberry Fields? All women who died while in _your_ company."

Bond felt anger rushing to the forefront. "Quiet," he said, through a slight growl.

"Come on, James! How many of your famous vodka martinis have you used to drown your sorrows? Certainly you've had at least a dozen for each woman who's life ended in your care."

"Shut up!" Bond slammed the butt of the M4 into Trevelyan's face. He was almost certain he knocked out two teeth. After that, he emptied the magazine of the carbine into the faces of each and every soldier in the room. Boris and Natalya ducked down very quickly. He grabbed Natalya by the arm and ran up the stairs, to the door that led back to the elevator.

Trevelyan wasn't happy. Boris set to work looking for anything Natalya had done. Viktor still had ten minutes before it would be in range of London. It didn't take a minute for Boris to find it: Natalya had set the rockets on Viktor to move it out of orbit and out of range. It would launch itself into Earth's atmosphere and burn up over the Atlantic Ocean.

"What the hell's going on?" Trevelyan growled. He grabbed Boris by the neck.

"It will enter the atmosphere in ten minutes," Boris answered, barely. It was hard for him to speak with a hand on his neck.

"Fix it!" Trevelyan basically threw Boris at the terminal.

"It should just take a minute..."

"What did you do?" Bond asked Natalya as they reached the elevator.

"I set Viktor to burn up in the atmopshere."

"Good. Take this up and get in touch with Wade, okay?"

She nodded, entered the elevator, and stopped. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to destroy the cradle."

"Good luck."

Bond nodded. When the elevator returned, he got in, pressed the top button and then pressed a button on his watch, to set up the remote mines.

Boris was just seconds away from fixing Natalya's added codes when the area behind him and Trevelyan exploded. Glass shards went everywhere, even lodging themselves into the large monitor. After the explosion died down, he stood up and looked at his monitor. The message **DATA COULD NOT BE RESET** was flashing on the screen. His attempts had been for nothing.

"What does that mean?" Trevelyan asked.

"The mainframes have been destroyed! I can't fix what Natalya changed!"

Trevelyan just causually drew his gun from his holster and pointed it at Boris' head. "Then I don't need you anymore." He pulled the trigger once, and Boris' body limply fell to the floor.

Bond was surprised that he heard the explosion from where he was. He was even more surprised that the explosion snapped the elevator cables and sent the car crashing straight to the bottom floor. After he got the doors open, he found he was in a cavern. The corridor he was in had lights along the ceiling, connected by chains. Two soldiers were surprised to see him climbing out of the elevator. Luckily, it was just the right amount of time to shoot both of them in the head with the USP.45 that he'd taken from the soldier in the jungle. His M4 had been snapped in half by the elevator crash.

_Time to find another elevator, _he thought.


	14. Chapter 14

_**Chapter Fourteen: For England**_

Bond ran quickly through the corridors. Few of them were guarded. He passed by several technicians working at pump stations and figured that the caverns he'd come to must have been involved with the draining of the lake above ground.

"_Hurry along, James!" _Trevelyan's voice taunted him. He wanted to shoot all the speakers he came upon.

Bond eventually came to a very large room in the cavern. The walls were lined with the pathway up to the top. The door there was being guarded by three men. They looked down and spotted Bond at the lower door and aimed their weapons. Bond ran to avoid the hail of gunfire that came as a result. When he reached the last circle around the room, he spray-fired the USP and killed two of the three soldiers, injuring the third. As he passed by, he pushed him off in his slight daze.

The new room was small, and seemed to only be a storeroom. He quickly passed through it and entered a large cavern, composed almost entirely of catwalks. There were two paths, one on the same level he was on and one downstairs. He took the downstairs route and continued on. He passed no soldiers. Most of them must have been stationed up top or in the control center.

The path ended with another stairway, leading up to the same floor he'd been on before. There door ahead of him led into a very large room containing explosive barrels. Bond reached into his back pack and retrieved one of the remote mines. He set it, tossed it into the middle of the barrels and pressed the button on his watch. The explosion destroyed a pump station. An alarm began to sound.

Bond had done something, but he didn't know what. Whatever it was, he hoped it truly pissed Trevelyan off.

Trevelyan was not happy. He watched as Bond entered another elevator and went up to the cradle. The cameras showing the dish gave him an image of the water rising up and covering the dish. The cradle, however, remained in place.

_Damn it! _He would have to take care of things himself. He got in the nearest elevator and went up to the cradle. Bond would die if it was the last thing he did.

Bond arrived at the top of the cradle and raised his weapon in anticipation. There was still no one around. He ran along the catwalk and came to a machine area in the center. He placed his last two remote mines on the machinary and got a foot to the face before he was finished.

"You couldn't leave it alone, could you, James?" Trevelyan asked. "You had to come and stop me, as if I was in the wrong."

Bond wiped blood from his chin. "You are in the wrong, Trevelyan."

"Of course you'd say that. I'm working for myself, to restore the honor of what my parents did. That's _obviously_ wrong! Everything must be for England, mustn't it, James?" Trevelyan kicked Bond in the face again.

Bond sent Trevelyan into a wall with an uppercut. He grabbed him by the neck and started punching away. "Why couldn't you just die, Alec? I saw you die that day, and you came back! Why couldn't you just goddamn _die_ instead?" Almost every sentence was punctuated by his fist connecting with Trevelyan's face. He had almost severly bruised the scarred half of Trevelyan's face before being kicked in the stomach and pushed away.

"Because I have a job to do, Bond!" He punched Bond in the face. "I have a calling!" A double-chop to Bond's back. "All you have is a paycheck from the Queen!" A knee to the gut. "Every time you do this, you lose someone, James. Why the hell do you keep going?"

Bond's vision was starting to double and blur. He drew one of his guns, which one he couldn't tell, and fired at one of the two dark blurs he saw in front of him. After that, he turned and ran out of the room. He needed to get away before he pressed the button on his watch. When he reached a safe distance, he went to pressed the button, but there was one problem:

His watch was gone.

Natalya got back to the plane and checked to see if the radio was damaged. She was in luck for once on this terrible day.

"Mr. Wade, Mr. Wade! Please!"

"_Where's Bond?"_

"He's on the cradle. We need help."

"_Got it. We saw the wreckage of the plane. Stay there and I'll send a chopper to pick you up."_

Natalya breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, Mr. Wade."

Bond fell to his knees. There was little he could do now. His only real hope was that Natalya had gotten to a radio and contacted Wade. If she did, maybe he'd just bomb the hell out of the cradle.

His vision was still blurry, but he now longer saw double. As he sat there, lamenting his situation, something landed in front of him.

"Finish the job, James," Trevelyan's voice taunted him, "blow this place to shit."

Bond reached out, picked up the watch, and pressed the button. The explosions didn't happen where he'd placed the mines. Instead, they blew in the rising water down below, not even affecting the cradle in anyway.

"Too bad, James." Trevelyan laughed. "You know, Bond, I'll tell you this: I was always better. Better than M. Better than the Service. Better than England. Better than _you_."

Bond's vision started to focus again. Trevelyan was coming into focus. He stood up and ran towards Trevelyan. Using momentum alone, he pushed Trevelyan over the railing. Trevelyan caught the edge just at the last second, and Bond's foot rested on his hand. For a few seconds, they just looked at each other. After almost a minute, Trevelyan simply said, "For England, James?"

Bond spat blood in Trevelyan's face and said, "No. For _me_." He then stomped on Trevelyan's hand and sent him plummiting into the last remaining section of the cradle He was impaled by three or four small antenna. His chest, both shoulders and his face were now bloody messes.

The helicopter landed in the clearing the gun-drone had been in. Natalya greeted three US marines and got inside. They lifted up and flew towards the cradle. She spotted a figure walking along the catwalks who waved both arms at them. "That's James!" she shouted. Bond waved they away, then ran inside a small shack in the center of the cradle.

"He's ordering us away, should we?" the marine asked Natalya.

"Just stay close," she answered.

Bond looked around for anything he could use to stop the machinary. There was nothing. No maintenace equipment. Not one thing. He pulled out whatever gun he had left, the USP (he had no clue when he lost the P99), and pulled the trigger. He dry-fired. The gun was empty. He checked his pockets for another magazine and found something else instead: Q's pen.

He clicked the pen three times and tossed it at the far side of the room. He ran as quick as possible and saw the chopper was still as close as it had been. As the pen exploded, Bond got up on the rail and jumped toward the helicopter. He just barely grabbed a hold of the landing rail as the explosion caught up with him. The helicopter pulled away as the sections of the cradle fell into the water below as each exploded. Two marines helped Bond into the carriage of the helicopter, where Natalya was. When he saw her, all he did was smile, and then he blacked out.

Bond awoke in a hospital bed. Natalya was sitting in a chair beside him. M, Tanner, Wade and Felix were all standing around him. His first words were, "And I thought Hell would look different."

Felix, Natalya and Tanner laughed. Wade looked confused, and M looked stoic. "You were out for almost a week, James," she said. "We were worried."

Bond sat up. "The antenna?"

"Destroyed," Tanner answered. "And Trevelyan's body was recovered. He's truly dead, this time."

"Good."

"Well, James, Wade and I just stopped by to make sure you were all right. Now that I see you haven't lost your sense of humour, we'll be seeing you later," Felix said, shaking Bond's hand. Wade did as well. They left shortly after.

"Bond, I'm glad you're alive," M said. She seemed to be genuinely concerned. Bond had no doubt she was.

"Me, too, ma'am. I'll be ready for work on Monday."

Tanner said, "But it's Tuesday."

Bond looked at Natalya and winked. "Well then, we have all week."

M just shook her head and left the room. Tanner followed like a lost puppy and left Bond and Natalya in the room alone. Bond reached out and pulled Natalya close to him, then kissed her softly on the lips.

A/N: Anyone who wants a PDF version of the fanfic (formatted like a novel with front and back cover, table of contents), email me at my main account, , and put "GoldenEye PDF" as the subject.


	15. Author's Note

_**Author's Note**_

Hey there, Bond fans. Here is the Author's Note, to be read _after_ you read _GoldenEye 2010_ in its entirety. I say that because this Author's Note is what I'm going to use to clarify any in-jokes, references and shit such as that.

If you've read this so far, I applaude you. This whole project gave me a lot of joy, because I actually wrote a Bond fic. I must say, if parts of this (from chapter 3 onwards) seemed to jump from one part to another without any warning, originally, there were a set of five astericks between sections. For some reason, they didn't stay when I uploaded the chapters.

Also, anyone who wants a PDF version of the fanfic (formatted like a novel, with front and back cover, table of contents), email me at my main account, , and put "GoldenEye PDF" as the subject.

I'm going to start off with some acknowledgments.

_**Acknowledgments**_

First off: Ian Fleming, for creating James Bond. Who'da thunk that forty-eight years ago, when _Casino Royale_ was published, James Bond would become as popular as he has?

Secondly, the cast and crew of _GoldenEye_, the film. Without them, there'd be nothing to base the basis of this fanfic off of.

Third, Daniel Craig, and whoever came up with the idea to reboot Bond. Now, I piled these two together because they're both integral to this acknowledgment. The guy who wanted the reboot because he created a more human version of Bond on the screen (the only Bond to do this previously was Brosnan), and Daniel Craig for _being_ that human Bond.

It was Craig's voice in my head that helped me write this, and because it was Craig, I had the rebooted Bond series to do whatever I wanted with (fanfics aren't canon, anyways, but when there isn't much canon to futz with, it makes things a whole helluva lot easier).

_**In-jokes, References, Homages and Little Bits of Trivia**_

_GoldenEye 2010 _was originally going to be the first in a series of fanfics about Bond that I'd write when I felt like it. After I started it, I decided I'd like to take a stab at retrofiting _Casino Royale_ and _Quantum of Solace_ to fit in with _GoldenEye_ (which shouldn't be too hard, since _GoldenEye_ is being written to fit in with those two films, anyway). So, after I finish _GoldenEye 2010_, I'll start on _Casino Royale_, move onto _Quantum of Solace_ and then finish off the "Quantum Trilogy" as it's called with a third, original story. There will also be various short stories set in this universe, the first one I've already started on.

The name of the chemical weapons facility in the "pre-title/credits sequence" (chapters 1 & 2) is Arkangelsk, which was the name given to the area in the N64 game. M's name for it in the little memory of Bond's briefing is Arkangel, the name given to the area in John Gardner's novelization (spelled differently) and the film itself.

The fact that Bond has to rappel down to the Dam level of the game comes from the trailer for the WiiMake

I know nitpickers'll notice I had M tell Bond not to kill anyone other than soldiers and the like in the flashback briefing in chapter 1, whereas Bond and Trevelyan go on unmerceliously slaughtering a bunch of helpless scientists in chapter 2. Yeah, I forgot about that and didn't notice it until it was too late.

The above example is not the only time I just outright forgot something. Near the end of chapter 1, I just outright _lost_ a Hind. I had it drop down some troops, then it flew away never to be seen again. If I'd caught it in time, it'd probably have been the victim of an action sequence at the end of chapter 2.

I decided to introduce the laser watch in chapter 1 instead of several chapters away on the train. This led me to a slight continuity error when I then had Q give him his "new laser watch", as if he'd never had one, in chapter 6. Luckily I caught that discrepancy. Basically, I took out the "new" part, so it still somewhat feels like a continuity error, but it could pass. I've got so many other goddamn errors in this, anyway, one little like that'll be swept under the rug.

I wanted to keep Bond hanging upside down from a vent and catching the attention of a Russian soldier on the toilet, but the line he said in the movie, "Sorry, forgot to knock" just didn't seem like Daniel Craig to me. The line I put in, "Excuse me, is that the sports page" just sounded like Daniel Craig. And it gave me more of a laugh.

I know it'll piss off a lotta people since I made Bond and Trevelyan meet for the first time in this fanfic (which takes out a lot of the emotional resonance of him showing up as the villain later on in the story) but, watching _Casino Royale_ and _Quantum of Solace_, Bond never meets any other Double-0 agents thoughout either of those two films. Now, I understand that Bond could have met more Double-0s before, during or after either movie, and the fact that none were given screen time means little to nothing, but I'm just choosing to say that Bond never met Trevelyan.

In chapter 2 I mention mandatory retirement from the Service (which Trevelyan is nearing). It used to be 45, in line with Fleming's novels, but upon discovering that the Daniel Craig Bond didn't actually enter the service until he was 38 (or 36, I don't remember) and would _himself_ be nearing mandatory retirement, I had to up the limit to 55.

Chapter 2 also introduces Dr. Doak, the double agent inside the facility. This comes from the N64 game, where this is an objective on Secret Agent and above difficulties. Dr. Doak is named after David Doak, formerly of Rare (who made the N64 game). I hope he appears in the WiiMake.

In chapter 2, Bond makes it upstairs and outside by way of a door, instead of a conveyor belt like in the movie. The door was an alternate way of finishing the Facility level of the N64 game (in fact, the very first one I ever found).

The space of time between the pre-title/credits sequence and the main story in the movie, game and Gardner novelization is 9 years. I shortened this to 1 year because I needed to have a reason behind the evaluation Bond is getting at the beginning of chapter 3 (it made abosulutely no sense to me that M would wait 9 years to evaluate Bond for this*, when she wastes no seconds in stripping him of his licence to kill after something he didn't do in _Quantum of Solace_). In the movie, I assume that it's because the new M requested it, whereas in my fanfic, there is no new M, and the reason behind the evaluation is because of what happened to Trevelyan in chapter 2 and its effects on Bond.*

Oh, I had Bond using a PPK in the first four chapters not because I like the PPK, but because there was a slight continuity issue. In the WiiMake, Bond has a P99, but in _Quantum of Solace_, he has a PPK. Now, in _Casino Royale_, he also had a P99, but I've already decided to take care of that when I do my _Casino Royale_ fanfic, I'm going to give Bond a PPK, which means that the MI6 standard issue when Bond joins is a PPK in my fanfic series, and then changes to the P99 in _GoldenEye_.

Caroline, the woman evaluating Bond in chapter 3, was given the surname 'Fleming'. If _anybody_ is reading this story and _does not know_ where that name comes from—Jesus _Christ_ you'd be an idiot. If you've even seen _one_ Bond movie, you know who _Ian Fleming_ is.

There's a little in-joke in chapter 3. In the film, Bond and Xenia have a little rank-pulling fun near the end of their first meeting. Now, I understand that in the official backstory to the Craig's Bond, he's also a Naval Commander, but that's never been stated in his two films. That's where Bond being unsure of his rank comes from.

The police officer who Bond takes the MP5K from is named Benson. This is a reference to Bond writer Raymond Benson.

The name of the helicopter, from chapter 4, is _Pirate_, not _Tiger_ like it is in the movie or Gardner's novelization (where it's actually _Tigre_). The name comes from the N64 game. Just another homage to the second greatest first person shooter in existence.

I changed the names of the two GoldenEye satalites to Ivan and Viktor because I just liked those names more than Petya and Mischa. They sound more like powerful weapons and less like desperate housewives.

I had a little bit of fun with Moneypenny's introduction in chapter 5. I originally intended her to be Mary Goodnight, who is Bond's secretary in the Fleming novels, but then I realized that it would be M's secretary outside the conference room, not Bond's, so I changed that to Moneypenny. I also used her name, Jane Moneypenny, from the _Moneypenny Diaries_ trilogy, which I've not read because I don't know if any of them are in the US, and I probably wouldn't _want_ to read them anyway. As such, Goodnight will probably appear in the (chronologically) third fanfic in the series, to come after _Quantum of Solace_.

Chapter 5 contains a reference to 009, and 009 is mentioned as being female. This is a reference to _Off Balance_ and _Past Bearing_, two fanfics on by Fenna Geelhoed. This is not some kind of crossover thing, just a little nod to a fellow fanfic writer who's work I happen to like. I like the humanity she brings into her stories. 009 might end up in more fanfics in a supporting role later on in my series. Honestly, I'd like to bring her in as the Bond Girl in one story, but I don't know how exactly to do it.

In one giant coincidence, chapter 6 actually bears the same title as chapter 8 of Gardner's novelization. I didn't even notice this until after finishing up chapter 8. It also contains similar contents (Bond getting his assignment from M and getting his stuff from Q) to the Gardner chapter.

Q's introduction in chapter 6 is quite an interesting story. I'd had the idea during the planning phase (this phase occurs in my head ten seconds before what I write appears on the screen) to make him the Q played by John Cleese in _Die Another Day_, but basically to treat him as if he had been playing Major Boothroyd. Now, as I write Bond, I try to put an actor to my head when writing the words (this stems from the fact that the film version of Bond was my first introduction to the character). For some reason, John Cleese refused to be the Q in my head, and I got somewhere close to a combination of Desmond Llewelyn and Anthony Hopkins, forty years younger.

Q and everything related to him has _always_ been funny to me in the movies. I've loved seeing people just screw up and nearly kill themselves just figuring out how to work the stuff. My favorite Q scene in the entire series is at the end of his appearance in _GoldenEye_. Yes, I'm talking about the sandwich scene. I liked it so much to add it as necessary outright comedy in the fanfic. Sure, there's a little bit of comedy in the story, but most of it is just... it's all pretty dark. I don't think that's necessarily _wrong_ for Bond, but sometimes you need the comedy of Roger Moore's third and fourth movies (_The Spy Who Loved Me_ and _Moonraker_, respectively) to keep it from being depressing. Just look at _Casino Royale_. If you didn't have that scene at the end when Bond shoots Mr. White and tauntingly says his catchphrase, that would have been one hell of a down ending. It's kind of the same with _Quantum of Solace_. If Bond didn't just plain mock Dominic Greene by giving him the motor oil to drink, that would have been a darker ending than it was. Now, these are just my ideas of what should go into any Bond story (be it book, film or game) and I'm not exactly the representative of the entire world's Bond fans (I like to think I'm pretty close to achieving that, however, but that's just my ego), so I really don't mind if you're idea is different. Just don't go trying to tell me mine's wrong because your's is right.

Another interesting coincidence: Q bears the name Horace Boothroyd. This unique coincidence is notable because I recently learned that IQ, from the _James Bond Jr._ cartoon, is Q's grandson, and his real name is Horace Boothroyd III, which means that Q would have also been named Horace Boothroyd.

Chapter 7 started out differently, originally. First, it started with the scene where Natalya's getting out of the shower (I felt like some fan service was needed) but then I realized I wanted to have a scene where Ourumov is torturing Boris (getting him to contact Natalya, which happens in the shower scene), so I implanted the scene where he goes to Mishkin's council (also in the movie) and then put the Boris torture scene after that. Then came the Natalya scene, then Bond meeting up with Wade, who I wasn't going to have in the story, originally. I was going to make it Felix Leiter, but I changed my mind and put Wade in. Felix will be in my fanfics, often in a very important position (such as my short story, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place") and he'll even get a bit part later on in _GoldenEye_.

If anybody gives me shit about my mentioning of St. Petersburg being the most populace city in Russia—I heard it on some History Channel documentary, like, ten years ago (still don't know why that's stuck with me) and it just came up in my head as I wrote the chapter. It may not be true now, it may not have been true ten years ago. It's just what I wrote, okay? I'm not Russia, I'm not British, I'm not even Lithuanian (don't ask, I won't tell), _I don't really know shit about Russia!_ Blame it on my arrogant American-ness and my laziness for not researching before I wrote this.

The meeting between Bond and Zukovsky in chapter 8 was made shorter than in the movie because I didn't feel like dragging it on. In the movie, it's just a reference to an event that never occurred on screen (it is implied to be just another one of Bond's missions that we never see), whereas in my fanfic series, it will occur in the sequel to _Quantum of Solace_ that I'm going to write. I didn't really feel the need to explain something that way.

The meeting of Bond and Trevelyan (if you haven't read the fanfic yet—SHAME ON YOU!) in chapters 8 and 9 was going to be longer. I just wanted to get to the actual Statue level from the N64, and then the Archives level directly after it. The Janus guys' use of a USAS12 comes from the Janus soldiers using automatic shotguns in the N64 game on that level.

In chapter 9, when Bond meets Mishkin, I was going to have Natalya there, but I felt it necessary to not have Bond and Natalya in the same room, that way it would be easier for Natalya to be captureed by Ourumov.

I caught myself again in chapter 9. When Bond uses his belt/rappelling cord, I originally had him just jumping over. Instead, I remembered the belt (this is also where Bond uses the device in the film) and had him use that. Made for a cool little sequence.

Chapter 10 has the tank part. 'Nuff said.

Chapter 10 also contains a level from the N64 game called the Depot. This level has absolutely _no_ film equivalent, and I really liked it. I did this again, later on, with the Caverns level of the game, which also doesn't appear in the film (in fact, it almost seems to be somewhat contradictory; in the game, Bond first goes down to the caverns before going up to the cradle; oh well, I'll find some kind of reason for it).

In chapter 10, Bond actually boards the train before it leaves the station, instead of stopping it with the tank and hopping on afterward. I did this because I decided to add the depot part. In the film, Bond never goes to the depot, whereas in the game (where a lot of scenes are coming from), Bond stops off at the depot and boards the train there. I'm just explaining this because I don't want people to think I didn't like Bond stopping the train with the tank, I actually do. I just didn't do it because Craig's Bond wouldn't do that. Hell, I've already kinda screwed him up by giving him gadgets. I just wanna keep that part of him intact.

The last section of chapter 10 is the Train level from the N64 game. Originally, I wanted this to be its own chapter, but I couldn't find much to pack into it. It only ended up about 1/5th of a normal chapter, and that dissapointed me. Oh, well. Closer to the end, I guess.

With three N64 game levels packed into it, chapter 10's got the most game content of any previous chapter. Previously I had three levels covered completely in the first two chapters (chapter 1—Dam to Facility Part 1; chapter 2—Facility Part 2 to Runway) and I kinda spread two levels over two chapters with 8 and 9 (8 has the first half of the Statue, while 9 has the second half and the Archives). Chapter 4 covers the Frigate level entirely.

Valentin's arrival at the end of chapter 10 was a spur of the moment thing. I was originally going to put him during the tank part. In the Streets level of the game on Secret Agent and above difficulty, you have to meet Valentin to give you more time during the level. I decided to take that part out and make the part in the story more like the movie version, so I had a Valentin scene that I wanted in, so I gave him the end of chapter 10, to explain how Bond and Natalya get away from the train.

Felix appears for a brief time in chapter 11. This was originally not in the story. Originally, that was going to be Wade, but I gave Wade back his original spot in Cuba. I've been switching Wade and Felix God knows how many times throughout this story. Jesus...

Dr. Molly Warmflash (I honestly thought her name was Warm_flesh_ the first time I saw it spelled out, which probably would have been a very fitting name for a minor Bond Girl, after all, _Quantum of Solace_ has Strawberry Fields...) is also introduced in chapter 11. She originally comes from the film _The World is Not Enough_, and is the doctor in the movie who gives Bond his clean bill of health.

The second scene in chapter 11 I put in just to have Bond relax for a little while. I still, for the life of me, don't understand why he invites Natalya to his flat (nor do I know why MI6 _let_ him do it), but I think it's a nice little scene. It shows a human side to my Bond.

Chapter 11 has a good deal of backstory. Bond mentions Vesper, Natalya's history comes up, Bond goes deep into himself. I wanted to do this because I wanted a slow chapter. It occurred to me while writing this that a lot of the chapters (pretty much 1 through 10) move along at quite a quick pace. I've been told by friends and aquaintences alike that I've got a good pace to my stories. Sometimes, however, I feel I need to slow down not only for myself but for others. A lot of people may like fast paced stories, but I know there are some who don't. If anybody dislikes chapter 11 because of this, I'm sorry. I try to appeal to a wide variety of people, not just a small group (but if the small group likes, too—yippie!)

The scene in chapter 11 where Bond waits for his DB5 really wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. They should be trying to get at Trevelyan ASAP, but I just wanted an excuse to put the DB5 in the story. I created the little detail of Bond having to wait for Wade to give it some justification. I've got a soft spot in my heart for Aston Martin cars, and the 1964 DB5 is my personal favorite (the 2008 DBS comes in a close second). I called it an American model because I don't think a British version would have the driver's side on the left. I may be wrong about that (I'm an American after all, we don't know much about shit), but that's my justification.

I just want to say this for all the freaks who get pissed at me for not putting in the BMW from the movie into the fanfic: I hated that car. Not very elegant, not even _used_ for a very long time. It shows up in the Q Lab in the middle of the movie, then in Cuba (or Jamaica, I can't remember where that part is, actually) when Wade drops off the plane. None of the gadgets (except the radar) are used. It doesn't even get five minutes of screen time. Honestly, with the exception of the Lotus Esprite, Bond should have never stopped using Aston Martins. The DB5 from _Goldfinger_ and the DBS from _Casino Royale_ are the two best cars of the series (with the Vanquish from _Die Another Day_ coming a close third).

Hopefully, a few people got the song reference in chapter 12's title (In the Jungle, the mighty jungle... yaddah, yaddah, yaddah, blah, blah, blah).

I had Bond give Natalya a gun in chapter 12 because in the N64 game, she was carrying a Couger Magnum.

In the Jungle level of the N64 game, there are actually quite a few drone-guns. There's even an objective to destroy all of them. I just didn't want to include a whole lot of them.

Xenia's weapons in chapter 12 are an FN P90 and a Croatian RBG6 grenade launcher. In the N64 game, Xenia uses the in-game weapons of the RCP90 (FN P90) and the Grenade Launcher (don't know what make). This is the only easy time you can dual-wield two different weapons in the game after you defeat Xenia. Xenia's location (near a rope bridge over a thin river) is also a reference to the N64 game.

On a note with the RGB6, this is one of the few grenade launchers that I know the designation of. I only know this because of _Metal Gear Solid 2 Sons of Liberty_. The M79 is another, but I didn't want to use that.

Xenia's death comes straight from the movie. I always liked that line, and Craig's voice saying it my head just sounded so _cool_, I just had to put it in.

The look of the control center, in chapter 13, is based on that of the game. I tried to completely recreate it using my memory and the Project 64 1.6 emulator, as well as put in some of my own touches.

The firefight in the chapter 13 is based on some other firefight in some other game that I remember playing. Honestly, I don't remember what, but, basically, every time you took out one or two enemies, that same number of replacement guards took their place. Come to think of it, it may have been _Syphon Filter_.

I changed Boris' death simply because I felt that my take on Trevelyan _would_ have shot Boris after he failed to do what was asked of him. I figure he would have done the same to Ourumov and Xenia had they lived to fail him.

I made the explosion destroy the elevator cables and send Bond down to the caverns simply because I needed to get him down to the caverns. I couldn't figure out any reason for him to go there of his own volition. If he was given the choice, he'd go directly to the cradle, like he does in the movie and novelization. Since I wanted the caverns in the story, I had to give him a plausible reason to go there, so he's sent there because of his bombs and then he has to find an alternate elevator.

Chapter 14's title, For England, is a reference to Bond and Trevelyan's last exchange in the moive: Trevelyan - "For England, James?" Bond - "No. For me." Now, in the movie, this is a reference to an exchange earlier in the movie, from the pre-title/credits sequence. Now, I didn't include this in the fanfic, but I did give the second exchange at the end a reason, brought up in Trevelyan's taunting throughout their fight.

I didn't put any soldiers on the cradle in chapter 14 because I wanted it to have the same feel as the scene in the movie.

While I was writing Bond and Trevelyan's fight, I had two ideas for the ending. One being that Bond and Trevelyan fight after Bond placed the mines and then have to 'For England' exchange, Bond throws the pen to set off the mines, and then jumps onto the helicopter. After thinking this through, I changed my mind. I needed to give Natalya her scenes where she contacts Wade and gets picked up. In order to do this, I needed to extend the Bond scenes. That led to the fight were Trevelyan pretty much overpowers Bond, sends him running, taunts him by throwing away the explosives, then gets his comeupance by being pushed over the railing. Then Bond uses the pen alone to destroy the cradle.

After writing the death of Trevelyan, I realized that I'd put a lot of blood in this fanfic. Gunshot locations are described, which I usually don't do, and Trevelyan's death alone was pretty gory for something involving James Bond.

I liked the ending because it doesn't go any further than Bond and Natalya's kiss. Originally, it wasn't going to get there, but I felt like adding a paragraph.


	16. PostGame Release Message

_**Post-Game Release Message**_

Well, friends, neighbours, _GoldenEye_-fans, the game was released last Tuesday (Friday for you unlucky PAL users... tsk, tsk, tsk) and has gotten mostly positive reviews, other than dumbass _Game Informer_, but nobody gives a damn about them, anyway. I, too, have played the game, beaten it, played its online. I must say, I'm damned glad I didn't get much right while writing this fanfic, otherwise I'd be scared that I had some kind of Bond ESP or something.

I enjoyed the game. I loved its music (though I still don't like the song _GoldenEye_, but I hated it to begin with) and its voice actors did superb jobs at their preformances (Trevelyan is a slight exception).

Well, that's all I really need to say. _Casino Royale_'s fifth chapter's takin' a little too long to finish, but I'll have it soon.


End file.
